more musings

Doing it Well

Two of my favorite examples of companies using social media at the core of their digital marketing mix:


Long time favorite: Urban Outfitters



Stats:

Website includes their YT videos and blog
Blog
YouTube channel
Mobile
MySpace

Why it works: They know their customers: they're online, their shopping experience at UO is a lifestyle, UO fits their lifestyle (+3). The blog features free downloadable mixes (same music as played in stores) and features the latest round up of indie pop culture magic (+2). They maintain a distributed presence across multiple social spaces, and they make sense (they're not being social spaces whores +2). -3 for not linking to their Facebook page from the site or blog, and for not using Polyvore.


New front-runer: The Roxy, LA


Stats:

Blog is their new website
MySpace
Flickr
Twitter
imeem
Eventful
FriendFeed
Muxtape
YouTube
Last.fm

Why it works:The Roxy is a club/event space with new events and info to share all the time-- the switch to a blog makes their "homepage" all the more useful and relevant (+3). A distributed presence on relevant social sites (+2) that is connected and easily accessible from the blog (+1).

i'm having a google identity crisis

I'm having a bit of an identity crisis...lol...and while I find myself mildly amused at my own egoism for stressing about this, it shows the value I suppose in your 'branded' social media spaces and impact on search + identity.

My name is Alisa Leonard. I recently married and my husband's last name is Hansen. I'm quite attached to my maiden name, but was not entirely sold on not taking his name. So I decided on Alisa Leonard Hansen. Unfortunately on my business cards for iCrossing it simply says Alisa Hansen. Its a large company and I joined right when I got married. So everyone knows the new name of Alisa Hansen.

What does this have to do with anything?

Google "Alisa Leonard" and I exist, somewhat on the internet.

Google "Alisa Leonard Hansen" and I exist, but to somewhat of a lesser degree (I went ahead and changed all my social net names to "Alisa Leonard Hansen")

But Google "Alisa Hansen" the results that come up are not me at all. I don't exist as that.

Is this the most ridiculous post ever? Probs. But Google identity is becoming (if not already) sort of THE most important reference you can have....

So, what do I do?

musing

10 Things Follow Up

A few more to add to the list

11. A social media strategy does not mean filling every possible social network with your "presence"....Remember, usefulness! Are you a support or drain on a community?

12. Sometimes listening (understanding) to the conversation is better than joining

13. You (the brand) have to be better-- not at "messaging" or even "dialoguing"....you have to be truly, honest-to-pete better. Peter Kim reminds us that "its whats on the inside that counts."

14. It takes people. Human interaction. Sincerity cannot be faked.

15. Be in it for the long haul. We are experiencing a fundamental way in which not only people communicate, but in how we collaborate and produce-- not a fad. Now is the time to start thinking about the long term affects/benefits of social technologies and how they can be applied enterprise-wide (and not just to marketing!)

EXACTLY

Brian Morrissey's new article on AdWeek "Why Brands Need a New Kind of Leader" hits the nail on the head with regards to "social media" and why brands need leadership to drive this area.

My favorite quote from the article is from Peter Kim and pretty much sums up the drum I've been beating for a while:

"The biggest challenge is moving away from thinking about it as marketing and PR," said Peter Kim, a Forrester Research analyst. "It's about product development, it's about IT. It's got to cut across all functions of the company."

Lets repeat that together...."The biggest challenge is moving away from thinking about it as marketing and PR"


"social media" is not a silo


I would offer here too that its about using social technologies (can we drop 'social' yet??-- web technologies!) in a useful, effective way. Don't just go out and fill every single social space with your very own branded page/profile/feed and start polluting the space because you think this is "joining the conversation."


Social computing, and the evolution thereof, has always been about enhancing collaboration and connectivity. Social computing has begun and will completely change "marketing" (and markets for that matter...er, ok I'm not an economist, but don't stop me when I'm envisioning!)-- not because a new channel (its not a channel) but because there is a fundamental shift in the way we, people, view ourselves. We are empowered. We don't care about your (you, the brand) message and we in fact increasingly scorn your attempts at marketing.

You (the brand) have to be better-- not at "messaging" or even "dialoguing"....you have to be truly, honest-to-pete better. Peter Kim reminds us that "its whats on the inside that counts." And you know what? Its true.

On "Influencers"

Chat

[redacted]: It sucks. COMMENTERS ARE TAKING OVER THE INTERNET.

me: as opposed to who?

[redacted]: bloggers, i guess. commenters are taking over!

me: as they should
right?
the mob rules

[redacted]: yeah, that's a good point... we WANTED them to win.

me: wanted? as in past tense?
now you don't?

[redacted]: well, they've become a bit of a scourge. they've made life a mess.

me: but thats the bargain you make
when you blog


Which led me to ponder...who are the real influencers? Bloggers/publishers/producers-- or readers/commenters/sharers?

On Facebook's Growth

A long-winded answer to....

Question: what are my anecdotal thoughts the cause of Facebook's growth?


"Facebook has always focused more on user experience than anything else. MySpace became riddled with spam and cluttered with ads so much so as to obscure the user experience and users were leaving MySpace in drove around ‘06/’07 to go to the cleaner, more user-friendly FB experience. They also rapidly expanded and marketed to international markets—namely Scandinavia initially (right when Swedish invasion was hitting)

But the single most important factor to Facebook's adoption? The Newsfeed. Streams. The network was more useful because it captures and reports back to users all of the actions taking place within their network. Solid gold utility.

Also, Facebook was first to release a developer API and we saw the rise of the infamous Facebook apps, which drove adoption of the platform.

Because of Facebook’s focus on authentic user experience (most users a registered under their real names as early membership required a university email address) it became a “safe zone” for an older, more professional demographic as well....

Then there was the release of the free Facebook “Business Page” which allows brands to integrate in a non-threatening, non-spammy way into the platform. There’s been a rise in demand from brands to establish these Business Pages as part of their digital marketing mix, driving adoption

Basically, Facebook has focused on offering a better user experience (some even go so far as to attribute the rapid adoption to one single, useful feature-- the News Feed feature), and their growth is a testament to just how vitally important putting user needs and experience first is to any platform.

MySpace allows for branded profiles, but at a cost of $150k

On a side note, MySpace has been late in innovation—they focused more on selling every square inch of space with ads they failed to take into account the poor user experience (spam, the constant “technical difficulty” warning, poor navigation and ugly UI), they have since made strides to change this with a recent re-design and developer API. I think it came a little late, and it will be interesting to see their next steps. I know Chris De Wolfe has said he wants to turn MySpace into a portal site much like a new MSN.com...."

Primer Review for Newbies: What the F**ck is Social Media

| View | Upload your own

**thanks to the fantabulous jackie johnson for pointing me to this...

Ready to Get "Socialized"? 10 Things to Consider Before Bothering Your Agency's Overworked Social Media Team

So everyone's drunk the kool aid on social....they've heard the cries of social media strategists everywhere (ahem) that the WEB IS SOCIAL! Ok! everyone's all fired up and inboxes are overflowing with requests for "social"...

For those wanting to "go social" a few things to consider, swallow, accept or dismiss before firing the guns


1. Before you ask about ROI consider this-- people are talking about with or without you. The conversation is invaluable. Are you in or are you out?

2. That's the point! Socializing your brand. Social initiatives are about brand building, community building, feedback gathering, awareness, relationships...it should be inextricable from your brand's strategic plan and certainly central to digital strategy.

3. A note on social media monitoring: a) Approach it with the expectation that it is about providing strategic intelligence based on the consumer conversation b) Use it to benchmark and track initiatives and programs c) Do NOT approach it as a watchdog solution and save you and your social media team the headaches

4. Don't suck as a brand company

5. If you think you can control, "herd," push or pull "consumers" (ahem, people), you're not ready. Have some more kool aid.

6. Can I say it again? Think strategically

7. Ask yourself two questions: How can I be useful? Why will people care?

8. Respect the attention economy

9. If "viral" is somewhere in your aspirations, stop reading this and read this

10. Lighten up, socializing is supposed to be fun


And as one last caveat: as the consumer landscape continues to change due to cheap, ubiquitous technologies that allow for instant, global publishing and communication it will continue to dramatically change the marketing game. If the above list makes you choke on your kool aid, keep drinking.

We are still in the early stages of that change, and while some people are choosing to embrace the "tenets of social" the reality is it won't be a choice for long. The change is charging along. People are social, the Web is our global platform, and markets are conversations (one big long sip of Cluetrain kool aid there-- and MMMM it tastes good).

Perfect for CMOs

Social Media in Plain English .

Hey Agency, the Web is Social

The Web: Connectivity & Utility

The current state of the web, beyond pages, is an ecosystem of services/applications that promote connectivity and utility. This follows the evolution of social computing-- moving from singular, contained activity to shared (collaborative) and portable activity (portable= the ability to access data from any device, not just from the device on which the data file was created and in turn the ability to access data from any app, not just the app in which the file was created).

The key elements of this connectivity are the content we create and the personal data we store and share via social technologies. This elevates the internet economy from "eyeballs and clicks" on pages to the buzz-concept of "consumer engagement"-- the user journey within applications and across the Web. As so precisely explained by Forrester, this shift has occurred due to:

"Easy connections brought about by cheap devices, modular content, and shared computing resources are having a profound impact on our global economy and social structure. Individuals increasingly take cues from one another rather than from institutional sources like corporations, media outlets, religions, and political bodies. To thrive in an era of Social Computing, companies must abandon top-down management and communication tactics, weave communities into their products and services, use employees and partners as marketers, and become part of a living fabric of brand loyalists."


All sounds like a big "duh," right? But it is surprisingly difficult for digital agencies to understand the technology trends that are and will fundamentally impact their business. As the idea that "the Web is social" permeates the digital agency world, digital strategy will have a complete new approach. "Social media" won't be an al a carte offering or afterthought, but rather central to digital strategy. Social media isn't social media...it is the Web. What then happens to all of the social media strategists? It becomes a question perhaps of agency organization-- some will continue as horizontal strategists, others depending on expertise may filter down into other areas-- be it analytics, web dev, etc.

The bottom line is that as the Web continues to evolve, all digital strategy will be inherently "social"-- there will not be a distinction between a digital marketing strategy and a "social media" strategy as the latter term is absorbed into the mindset of digital agencies as simply being "digital strategy."

Of course this puts more pressure on teams who are currently working on tangible engagement metrics and delivering what ROI means within the social web.

Think that "engagement" metrics are just marketing hogwash and that it just affect agencies?

For online publishers this is a huge issue-- getting agencies to spend their client's dollars on your site is going to rely heavily on delivering against these new engagement metrics. Recently a friend with a prominent music blog mentioned how some advertisers were complaining about a lack of click-though rates on the site, nevermind that their advertising content on said site is completely widgetized and that millions of readers/users interact with that ad-laden widget everyday (both on and off the site itself). The point isn't click-throughs, its about that interaction/involvement/intimacy-- ie "engagement" with the brand via the widgets. Both the agency handling the ad buy and the advertiser themselves need to be educated on engagement ROI. That the conversation is still about click-through rates is evidence that we have a long way to go in educating both the industry at large and our clients. To start, we might do well to start looking at ourselves in the mirror and repeating..."the Web is social, the Web is social..."

Am I wrong? Lets have at it...

Data Wars

Me: "I promise you, the Giant Global Graph will NOT be housed under Microsoft's wing.....!"

Rex: "Oh look, Microsoft is trying to make themselves relevant again! By being a monopoly again! Yay!"





Here's what it is: By making a play for Facebook Microsoft would have access to one of the world's largest open consumer databases; couple this with a Yahoo! search buy and their obsessive research into future digital advertising solutions like their Visual Product Browsing (algorithm that categorizes images by the data in the image itself vs. manual tags or filenames)....and you've got a software giant making a huge play for Web ownership.

No doubt Microsoft would intend to keep Facebook a closed data silo from which to leverage its search (Goog can't spider much Facebook data but perhaps a Micro-owned Yahoo would, now that would be smart).

Ok, so lets review some issues: The Data Portability Workgroup and Google both have been working on creating new standards for accessing and sharing (porting) data; recently MySpace, Facebook, and Google announced their own data portability initiatives, all while maintaining the central control of where that personal data is actually stored (none of the initiatives allow third party sites to cache or store the data). The issue is that until there is a universal, decentralized data silo from which to access and leverage our personal digital data, this tug-n-pull for data control will continue, and precisely why Microsoft is possibly looking at Facebook. FB, as of now, is the leader in sheer volume of valuable personal user (read: consumer) data.

Unfortunately for Microsoft they underestimate (as they have so many times before) the open web movement:

"They are a company trying to cling to the status quo- control, power, etc...when there is a mobile, educated, armed mass of consumers who can create what was once only proprietary to MSFT"

And while I hate quoting Scobel (his take on the possible Microhoobook deal is near idiotic with his claim that FriendFeed would be the savior of open web), He does make a point as to why a possible Microhoobook would be a big freaking deal:


"Don’t think this matters? It sure does. Relevancy on Yahoo search will go through the roof when it has access to Facebook data and Google doesn’t. People will see that Yahoo has people search (something I’ve asked Google for for years) and Google doesn’t. That’ll turn the tide in advertising, and all that."

And frankly, until the social graph becomes truly decentralized, I'd rather have Google as the intermediary, but then again as a friend of mine pointed out via chat the other day, I suppose Microsoft was once held with a similar esteem we give Google today. But hey, with a motto like "Don't Be Evil," we can trust them, right?

"Data Portability"....Sigh

So after the hub-bub of the original 3 announcements by MySpace, Facebook, and Google on the various "data portability" initiatives I've had time to investigate little deeper into each initiative.

I will state first, that while all three implementations of so-called data portability are lacking-- in some cases more than others, and while some barely qualify as actually porting one's data and accessing it wherever they please, I do think there is still one important thing to be said for all of it: at least we're starting on the road to get there.

Yes, Goog's Friend Connect is nothing more than a bunch of iframes and their agenda is to push their Open Social apps; yes MySpace's Data Availability doesn't actually allow sites to cache any information (and thus not actually allowing for portability-- but to be fair they do call it "availability" which they do, they make data available, not portable); and yes, now in the name of "user privacy protection" Facebook is not allowing Goog's Friend Connect to access its API (mother Facebook apparently knows better than us who we want to share our data with)--BUT..its a step. A baby step now fraught with embattled players, but a step nonetheless.

Now, as for this Facebook/Google scuffle....contrary to what Scoble says, its not Google thats in the wrong. How can Facebook, in an act of "protecting user privacy" deny me, the user, the right to allow Google to access my data?? Facebook doesn't care about user privacy, they care about maintaining their control over user currency whilst under the guise of participating in an open web. As for Google wanting to be the middle man, well thats no surprise. And contrary to some of Facebook's statements about Google not allowing for the discontinuation of data access (among other things), Google is taking precautionary measures to ensure user privacy (again though, its not perfect).

We still seem a way off from creating a decentralized Giant Global Graph, one that lives in the Cloud and free from the walled gardens of the social nets themselves....but I still think these first toe-dippings are a good sign. Its exciting nonetheless-- not because of the current implementations but because of the promise.

Goog's Friend Connect: The Web is Social

So this may not be the answer to social computing utopia yet, but the latest announcements from MySpace, Facebook and Google on their various data portability initiatives are exciting. After months of being members of the Data Portability Workgroup, these announcements (although made separately, and also interestingly not made in reference to working with the DP) appear to be the first of what I hope to be many:

On the premise that “users are in control of their data,” MySpace was first out of the gate with their Data Availability announcement. Inside this opt-in framework users will be able to dynamically share their data & content with third-party sites. Users will be able to port (1) Publicly-available basic profile information, (2) MySpace photos, (3) MySpaceTV videos, and (4) friend networks. Launch partners for this initiative include Ebay, Twitter, Yahoo!, and MySpace’s own subsidiary, Photobucket.

Facebook quickly countered with their own version of a data portability initiative, Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect (FBC) seems to echo pretty much the Data Availability initiative - the users are in control of their data and content, and now can port their Facebook data to third-party partner sites. Digg has already been announced as a launch partner for FBC, and it will be interesting to see who else comes in on Team Facebook.


Enter Google: The Google offering, Friend Connect, takes a different turn bringing the social Web to the long tail. With MySpace and Facebook, data portability is flowing out from them; with Google’s Friend Connect data portability becomes even more significant by allowing websites, any site, to act as a social hub. As a user I can opt-in to a Friend Connect-enabled site and if I so choose port my content and even friend network over to that site. I can also (and most virtuously for said site) have all of my interactions with that site fed back to my social net feeds (thus encouraging more traffic, and theoretically, more qualified traffic).

As a site owner, I don't need to do a massive redesign, or even know code. With a snippet of embeddable code I can create a social experience on my existing site by 1) allowing users to login via OpenID, 2)bring their data to populate their presence, and 3)create a dynamic experience by integrating OpenSocial apps to my site.


According to Google, “Any website owner can add a snippet of code to his or her site and get social features up and running immediately without programming - picking and choosing from built-in functionality like user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting and reviews, as well as third-party applications built by the OpenSocial developer community.”

Any app, Any site, Any friends…

I was on the conference call Google held this morning to discuss the Friend Connect service where they elaborated on some key points:

First, about a dozen or so (test) sites will be Friend Connect-enabled for beta testing (live later this evening after Google’s Campfire) and preview. They project that it will be a few months before FC is available for all webmasters (you can sign up for a waiting list at Google's Friend Connect site once it goes live later tonight...you'll get a 404 Error if you try now)

The Friend Connect service helps any site become social by acting as a hub for the following existing open standards:

1. Universal user sign-in and authentication via OpenID (will support AOL and Google logins) for any site

2. Friend sources (Facebook, MySpace, Plaxo, etc.)

3. Features for non-social sites in the form of OpenSocial Apps

NOTES

This is a very exciting announcement-- because the concept is there, although the implementation may be lacking.

Adoption of Google initiatives seem to have been lagging (like, who builds Open Social apps?) but the more interesting part of all of these announcements is not what they will affect in the immediate...but what these moves say about the future of the web.