I learned of the 7.8 earthquake in south eastern China today via Michael Darragh's Twitter stream - our Digital Influence team member in Shanghai. Horribly, as many as 900 students may be buried, the BBC Reports. While I don't want to turn such a terrible event into a communications object lesson, I see one of the true benefits of Twitter in the early twits out of China. It reminded me of following the blog of the tech guy during the Katrina crisis.
I spoke about Word of Mouth Marketing at this year's Verge Toronto - Ogilvy's digital confab for clients (thanks to Guy!). Paul Beck, Digital Strategist at Ogilvy and all around smart evangelist, delivered a great snapshot of innovative digital programs - many of them anchored in social media - in the B2B and B2C space. He has been a tremendous ally within Ogilvy from the advertising side and is pushing some terrific "social" programs with clients like American Express.
I shared about choosing a new coffee making solution (thanks Gerry!).
Paul shared about his "Cell Phone Experience." Paul dropped his phone in a puddle. He went online to research the right replacement. He started at Google (only customer acquisition links there), to Technorati, to YouTube. He bought the LG Envy based upon cgm videos and positive mentions from "strangers with experience." He wanted to do what many of us want to do now - hear what others have to say about their exeprience with the product.
This category - "Strangers with Experience" - has grown as a source for product referral more than any other source from 1997-2007. This starts to speak to the idea of who we find influential amongst people we do not directly know.
Paul has a very clear and strong POV about transforming the marketing process. He describes this as "Flipping the Long Tail." It's simple really. Find and connect with your advocates and fans, engage with them, amplify what they say or do and then market around that to ultimately reach a mass audience. This is the true promise behind word of mouth programs.
Paul's 3 point program
1. Listening as a disciplined marketing practice: Don't listen once. Don't just do focus groups. Make listening a fundamental and ongoing practice.
2. Advocacy as a deliberate marketing channel: Don't just tack on a WOMM program. Make it core and make the discipline of making it work central to your team.
3. Unlock and unleash the content: Once you have engaged consumers to create cgm - work it, merchandise it, get it into search engines
Cardmembersvoice.com
He shared a great program he leads with American Express which just launched. Cardmembersvoice.com asks members for their input and feedback. Using our 'Voice of the Customer' platform, they solicit ideas and report back to customers what they may do with that good thinking. I know this was a journey of internal evangelism and education to get to this point. It's a great program and reflective of what experts like Paul - real practitioners, not pundits - can do to transform marketing.
My favorite Paul quotes from his session:
"Open source problem solving - don't ask broad questions - invite them to help solve a specific problem."
"Community is not a place. It is a shared set of values"
He also left the audience with four related imperatives:
The Media Development Authority in Singapore is soliciting bids from hungry software development shops to build their own version of Second Life. MDA department chief executive Michael Yap calls it "Google Earth meets Second Life." Can't you just hear the concept meeting now?
The development seems to be tied to the launch of the 2010 Youth Olympics. The budget is not clear. The MDA will fund 50% of the development costs which suggests that they are also seeding a business.
I have to admit that when I first read about this in the newspaper upon touching down, I had immediate visions of Walmart's The Hub. Remember that ill-fated MySpace clone for committed Walmart shoppers? I think it lasted about three months in the light of day before they pulled the plug with a quiet little "Oops" squeaked out of Bentonville. Creating a social network - virtual or otherwise - is not a trivial task that can be overcome by a deep purse and business "will". The fact that a government authority is behind this new effort only added my sense of hubris-fueled doom.
I think I am wrong. On quite a few levels, actually.
I had the chance to meet with Krishnasamy Bhavani from the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts where the MDA resides (MICA). I met with bloggers and PR pros. I met with friends who had grown up in Singapore. Others who have since gladly made it their home or at least their homebase. And while there are some mixed feelings about the controlling nature of the government, one thing seemed to come to the surface: they could actually pull off creating the Singapore Virtual World.
There are three things that support this idea:
1. When Singapore won the bid for the Youth Olympics, there was a wave of pride across the island city-state. I wasn't there when that happened, but the sense I get is that it was widespread and unifying. That pride may drive traffic and residency in a virtual social network that promises to reproduce the physical Singapore with some innovative mix of 3D and live-camera feeds.
2. MICA and DMA are the groups responsible for the world-reknowned feat of pervasive wireless connectivity across Singapore. They do what they say they are going to do. I walked in with a western POV. My government could never pull this stuff off but that wouldn't stop them from wasting taxpayer's dollars on ill-fated projects. Most people I talked with acknowledge the efficiency of the Singapore government and it's overall capability in what some call "social engineering." They have the will, the resources and the capability of accomplishing significant tasks. They know what they are doing and they have a proven track record.
3. Singapore will become a significant hub of technological - specifically Internet marketing - innovation over the next 5 years. Warning: this obeservation is firmly rooted in gut, not independent research. This comes more from my own experience with our 360° Digital Influence team throughout Asia Pacific (major hubs in Singapore, China and Australia), a gut feeling about the efforts of the government to seed tech business (some failed attempts which is the source of learning not dead-ends), some emerging social media education, and the idea that the current government leaders will be succeeded by a next-generation leadership who see the benefits of loosening the reins a bit to juice growth.
Welcome to Virtual Singapore
I love Singapore. I first visited 20 years ago. The city-state has become a significant nexus of wealth perhaps, eclipsed by dramatic, nearby Dubai but quietly stable and growing. There are almost all the right seeds to make Singapore a digital marketing hub, if not a digital innovation center. Who knows, they may have a a virtual Singapore we can all join by the start of the Youth Olympics. If anyone can pull it off, it will be Singapore. And I will join if they will have me.
I like nice hotels. Hotels with something special. And like almost everyone, I appreciate remarkeable experiences. I would rather talk about an interesting experience with someone than who is leading on American Idol or the books I am reading. That's probably why I keep trying boutique hotels.
I just stayed at the Park Hyatt in Sydney which sits right on the Harbor in the shadow of the Harbor Bridge. The famed Opera House sweeps up from the opposite pier. All in all a remarkeable setting.
The hotel is one of the best I have stayed in. (No, I do not stay in super luxury hotels)
The service was great. Everyone was extremely nice. The amenities were first rate. Still I long for a remarkeable, personal touch. The Kimpton hotels give out goldfish as temporary pets. That's remarkeable. So, what could the beautiful Park Hyatt Sydney do to move from exceptional to remarkeable?
The Idea Already:
1. Create an employee idea list and give every guest a custom list. You know the employee book reviews at bookstores like Politics and Prose? What if all of the employees of the hotel listed out the 5 things they like most about Sydney? Sandwich shops, views, best local coffee, local artists. Now what if you solicit the same lists from a varied collection of native Sydney natives? Of course it all exists online and the content is tagged.
Three or four questions at check-in drive a custom list that can be printed out and handed to each guest (or better yet, added to my custom hotel Web portal which still doesn't seem to exist).
The hotel could solicit list ideas from guests. Soon, we all belong to a niche community of folks who love Sydney and want to connect with personal, authentic experiences.
Who knows, it might even draw staff into owning the experience even more than they do now.
This is not too far from the Visitpa.com playlist concept or the TurnHere video tours.
2. Give each guest a Great Sandy Desert or Gibson Desert. Like the goldfish, these would be personal bowls of real desert sand from one of the interior deserts of Australia kind of like the Zen garden concept (you know - minature rake, the rocks). There are 6-7 desert regions within the interior of the driest continent in teh world. Guests could choose which one to have in their room for their stay. As I flew from Sydney to Singapore, we crossed the continent. I was blown away by how vast and foreign it all seemed. At times I felt I could have been looking down on Mars. I believe many people have a romantic yearning to feel the outback. Why not let them in the luxury of their hotel room. Okay, giving everyone a Koala bear might top this but I think there would be some problems with that.
As per Rohit's new book and the Website promoting it - The Personality Project - it takes an extra commitment to go beyond great into personal and remarkeable. I think it's worth it.
I have been very open about my love for BlogHer, the collective of women bloggers centered in North America. I love how blogging and social networks have amplified women's voices by offering a digital publishing and "distribution" platform and leads to natural networks as people's social graphs start to intersect. I am not describing anything more than social media 101 but it's great to se ethat dynamic alive and growing in Australia (I am here working with my team this week).
All for Women reminds me a bit of BlogHer. Leigh, the founder, is a young woman - mother, entrepeneur and self procliamed geek. She established the site in 2005 and covers everything from mom issues to beauty to tech. You can subscribe and pay extra attention every Monday as they feature another woman blogger. This week - their first - they feature the oldest woman blogger, Olive Riley who posts at Life of Riley.
They maintain a most excellent list (Alexa x technorati rankings) of the top 100 Aussie women bloggers. Inspired by Meg at Frogpond who maintains the top 100 Australian blogs list, Leigh's list is a great way to quickly see the breadth of women bloggers active here in Australia.
There's a lot to discover here - great voices. Two I like instantly - Snippets of Life from Karen Cheng, which is just a very grounded mom blog about real life. And the Bargain Queens which like it's title suggests is just plain useful.
(And by all means check out The Bra - a section of All for Women that is actually a great community-builder activity - fun for all!)
I guest-lectured at a colleague's graduate class at Johns Hopkins where I also teach a class. One of her students - a young man in his twenties studying to enter marketing and/or communications - asked seriously, "Can I just wait out the whole blog-thing, wait till it fades away or do I have to pay attention to what's happening?"
Didn't expect that question from him, a digital native. But I do hear it a lot from business "gray-hairs" - the digital immigrants. The short answer is that blogging will not fade away like a fad. I certainly believe there will be a "leveling off" of the explosive growth we have seen. But too many people have found a voice and a reward for publishing their POV to expect that to recede It is part of a movement that will continue to grow and change affecting how we market from this moment forward.
It's Not All About Blogs
My team focuses on the larger realm of social media and the word of mouth marketing it makes possible. We find ourselves constantly telling curious clients, "It's not all about blogs." (nor, is it all about Facebook or running ads on Federated Media). And while the options for a comprehensive social media strategy are broad, it's interesting to see how the tactic of starting a brand blog(s) is maturing, becoming a sensible part of a marcom effort, and being applied by various brands.
I wanted to examine how three contemporary brands are using blogs today. You can get a pretty good list of business blogs here. I wanted to look beyond the stalwart examples: the GM blog(s), the Southwest Airlines blog, even the Direct2Dell blog. Each of these remain great examples and enduring efforts. I wanted to examine some new ones or some of which remain less spotlighted.
Contemporary Corporate Blogs: Lenovo, WellsFargo, Starbucks
They are each very different businesses with very different needs and situations. (Full disclosure: We started Lenovo blogs with David Churbuck. Our company also does work with WellsFargo but I have no connection with that business.)
In the case of Lenovo and Wells Fargo, I talked with some of the folks running those blogs. I did reach out to Starbucks but haven't heard back yet.
For Wells Fargo, I connected with Staci Schiller, Wells Fargo Education Financial Services. Staci runs the Student Loans Blog.
For Lenovo, I reached out to David Churbuck, VP of Global Web Marketing
Here's what I wanted to understand:
Lenovo
The Skinny (short description of the blog)
A series of blogs from different leaders & managers within Lenovo. Currently the blogs are in English. They are aggregated into a single url and bundled with their Flickr feed, del.cio.us tags and it links through to Lenovo Communities which feature user message boards.
When asked what surprised him about the blogs, David Churbuck said,
"The quick acceptance and genuine good will throughout the organization was inspiring. The greatest surprise came when a blogger complimented a competitor for a design choice, received some internal criticism for "aiding the enemy" but then turned that negativity to positive feelings when one writer said it made Lenovo blogs more authentic and genuine than the typical company PR blog."
The Bloggers (who is writing or producing the material)
Various personalities within the company from David Hill, who runs their global product design team, to Bill Stephenson, who heads up CSR. They are not all senior leaders but they are people with a POV.
The Purpose (what is the marketing or communications purpose)
David Churbuck: "To provide an interesting experience to the readers worthy of their time and to persuade them that the passion of the company for its products and customers is genuine."
The Measurement (how do they measure success)
David Churbuck: "Metrics are not closely followed in terms of traditional page views, RSS subscriptions, or other quant measures. Primary justification is enthusiasm of readers, customers, press and the bloggers themselves. Success is the ability to publish, with near instantaneous execution, information vital to the business."
David and his team measure overall Web metrics for the blogs but look for those qualitative wins - customer service "fixes", innovative suggestions from customers, their ability to address concerns and communicate what they are doing inside Lenovo.
The Social Score (how connected are they: 1 to 5)
Lenovo gets a 4.5
Lenovo Blogs is growing in depth and breadth. That means they continue to add bloggs and bloggers. Unlike Wells Fargo, they tend to limit the number of bloggers on a single blog to somewhere between 1 and 4. The breadth part includes adding other social features like the Flickr gallery and del.icio.us feeds. I would guess we will see a YouTube gallery soon, Dopplr and other features.
No appreciable blogrolls anywhere. That seems to be a common issue with "official" corporate blogs. Linking feels like endorsement no doubt and that causes anxiety. Also, corporate blogs don't jockey for popularity the way personal blogs do through link-baiting and eventual link-love. They rely more clearly on search results to connect with readers. Lenovo blogs shows up on the first two pages of Google results for Lenovo (but not ThinkPad).
Wells Fargo
The Skinny (short description of the blog)
Wells Fargo currently runs 4 group blogs with more than 30 bloggers contributing. These include Guided By History which talks about the heritage of the company, The Student LoanDown and a SecondLife-inspired Stagecoach Island (all their names are service marks so don't steal them). The blogs feel collegial and informal enough. We have pictures of all the contributors to bring the personality to life. No multimedia yet.
I asked Staci Schiller, blogger at The Student LoanDown, to summarize their approach to blogging.
Staci Schiller: "The banking industry is heavily regulated, and for good reasons, so we carefully consider how we interact with users and what kinds of topics we discuss. Also, most of our bloggers are team members who have full time jobs, and to add blogging--writing, posting, reading, replying--on top of those jobs takes dedication and discipline. The culture of blogging is unique and we strive to connect with that culture in the way we communicate and interact in the blogosphere."
The Bloggers (who is writing or producing the material)
One thing I noticed is that Wells Fargo seems to have a staff of historians. Charles Riggs, who is featured on the Guided by History blog is a researcher with Wells Fargo Historical Services since 1995. John Stumpf, President and CEO appears on that blog's masthead. Many of the other bloggers within Guided by History are in some way connected to archives, museum or history business functions.
The Student LoanDown features more of a marketing/communications staff (approximately 8)as bloggers.
The Commercial Electronic Blog requires log-in and Stagecoach Island positions itself as a community with 3D graphics that you might associate with a Second Life-type virtual world
The Purpose (what is the marketing or communications purpose)
With this variety, each of the blogs serves a different audience and potentially a different purpose. The Guided By History blog is all about bringing the heritage of teh company to life and therefore to support the corporate brand position.
Student LoanDown is more directly targeting customers.
Staci Schiller: "Our goal is to serve customers when, where and how they want to be served. People get their information in many different ways, and social media offers us a new opportunity to have a dialogue with our customers, learn from them, and provide information and advice on topics that are important to them. We're reaching new audiences in a personal way when our team members share their thoughts and experiences on blogs."
The Measurement (how do they measure success)
Staci Schiller: "Blogging is about engaging in conversations, so we measure success based upon the number of readers we attract, as well as their interaction with us through email feedback, comments, and reader posts on their own blogs or sites about our blogs."
The Social Score (how connected are they)
Wells Fargo gets a 4
Like most corporate blogs, the Wells Fargo blogs don't feature BlogRolls per se. While the bloggers seem to do plenty of crosslinking from with posts, the site itself does not leverage many of the social media tools that others do: bookmark icons, send-this-to-a-friend links, YouTube or Flickr galleries.
They have more bloggers per blog than Lenovo. But fewer blogs. And there is no sign yet that they are implementing any other social media content or features that might expand how people connect with them. Still, their experimentation with formats - the virtual community - demonstrates they are trying different things.
Starbucks
The Skinny (short description of the blog)
Unlike the others, the Starbuck's blog is part of a larger co-creation that has gotten a lot of coverage lately, My Starbuck's Idea. Like Dell's Ideastorm, the overall site solicits Starbuck's product and service ideas from customers on the Web. The blog is called Ideas in Action. It's where they report back on the ideas submitted.
The Bloggers (who is writing or producing the material)
There seem to be quite a few bloggers including Brad Stevens Vice President of Marketing. many are identified with name and picture, some have cryptic user names like Sbx_bean. Makes you wonder who these folks are. There seem to be almost 14 different bloggers with only one or two posting more than once.
The Purpose (what is the marketing or communications purpose)
The blog is focused on responding to the user ideas submitted in My Starbuck's Idea. It is part of a co-creation activity and meant to build a strong relationship with those folks motivated to post and read this experience. The feedback alone in the core co-creation space is priceless.
The Measurement (how do they guage success)
While I haven't spoken to Starbuck's, the blog's performance is so integrated into the co-creation that beyond Web traffic, they must report number of ideas submitted, votes and comments per idea (the suggestion that the difference between Venti and Grande should me more than more milk received 177 comments to date). They are focused on reaping product and service innovation benefits.
The Social Score (how connected are they)
The whole thing gets a 4.5. (If you just carved off the "blog" element, that would only get a 3 or so)
Yes, the co-creation idea thing has been done. But it's a great social media experience that more brands would benefit from. While the blog proper does not allow for comments, there are plenty of comments in the idea space. Starbuck's lets its fans and regular customers take centerstage and as in many communities, it's the community that comes to the defense of the brand when critical comments are posted.
Summary
Both Lenovo Blogs and Wells Fargo are great examples of blogging growing up into a real communication activity. Still, both organizations are bootstrapping the effort - all of the bloggers have day jobs.
While Lenovo is embracing more of what's available in social media, Wells Fargo seems to have more of the rank and file involved as bloggers. In both cases, they have opted for special interest blogs - from student loan conversations to product design. They are letting those with a voice and POV within the company develop an audience (a community of readers/commenters) around more focused topics.
Disney surprised me at the Media Relations Summit 2008. Duncan Wardle, VP of Global PR Disney Parks, talked openly about having some challenges launching social media-based programs inside the company. The legal department was mentioned several times with a knowing tone in his voice.
They have several social media-based programs going: Virtual Magic Kingdom (think Habbo Hotel meets NeoPets) Dream Jobs (would you like to be a Pirate at the park for a day? Who wouldn't?), a Mom's panel and others. He introduced each by commenting on how challenging it was to get these "uncontrollable" programs through legal.
But the insight came during his description of some of these programs and when he answered the question about where social media responsibility should reside in the marcom world within an organization like Disney.
More Complex Integration
Duncan described having all players of the marcom mix at the table - the brand managers, the advertising folks, the Public Relations team, the CRM folks, etc... That is how we are working more and more. Who "owns" social media or it's more mature outcome, word of mouth marketing, is a trick question. He described how they strike more complex deals now with entities like the big portals (e.g. Yahoo) which weave the communication goals and business objectives of all of the discip0lines to get the most out of the portal. So, it's not just an ad buy to drive traffic to an initiative, it's editorial integration, an even a bigger commitment on selling rooms via the travel channel within the portal, and so on.
Campaigns meant to generate customer or employee involvement and word of mouth work better when complemented and integrated with PR and advertising. They need to work together to get the best effect. And social media? Social media is a set of tools, techniques and methods used to reach a marketing or communications goal - usually in the form of word of mouth marketing. I added this last distinction. I think it was implicit in Duncan's talk.
Charlie Rose was interviewed by Howard Rubenstein to kickoff the Media Relations Summit 2008 in SF today. They spoke as friends so no hard, fastballs here.
He spoke about how he gets folks to open up on the show (comparing it to Bob Woodward's chipping away at the story model). "A great guest is one with opinions." Yet they realized that they had been hosting too many known business leaders. They are trying to get more diverse.
Good, solid quote "Don't try and sell product. Sell authenticity."
All in all, it was a great Charlie Rose lovefest. He's very proud of his Web site. He is very excited about getting all of his content up there and reaching people that way. He wants to make his show easier to use on the web site and available everywhere. He has 17 years of interviews - long form - on teh most interesting people in teh world. He quoted a fan who watches the show on YouTube.
His favorite interviews:
Rupert Murdoch
Sophia Loren
Warren Buffett
Bruce Springsteen
Bill Gates
Bill Buckley
The one he would like to do:
Johnny Depp
There's a great event coming up in May. As a WOMMA member I see this event as a breakthrough in formats. It's practical, hands-on coursework in Word of Mouth Marketing alongside the best in the business. You will leave with new ideas, new programs, new tools that you can apply to your business and brands today. It will be intimate with a live participatory model that will give you access to some of the best WOMM practitioners in the world.
May 8 & 9th, 2008 in Miami. Get more & register at http://womma.org/wommu/
Three big reasons to come:
Great Insightful Keynotes:
Carla Hendra, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Ogilvy North America will share how word of mouth marketing is transforming marketing, why every CMO needs to evolve their view of the discipline and inside stories on how Ogilvy has embraced WOM.
Andy Lark, VP of Global Marketing & Communications, Dell gives an inside look at how word of mouth and social media has changed Dell forever and how they are using more and more non traditional marketing and communications, to be a part of the conversation with their customers.
Intimate Roundtable Sessions:
Call it a collaboratory, call it a roundtable, but don't call it a "presentation." We've added a series of intimate roundtables (10-15 people) hosted by experts where you can share in a conversation with your peers on topics that matter to you.
We will cover top questions including:
What’s new in 2008?
What’s working based upon real brand case studies?
How can I get started in WOMM and how can I pilot a program in 2008?
How can I make my existing WOM programs even more effective?
How can I measure and report ROI now?
Who can help me create effective WOMM programs?
How can I connect with my peers in this space?
Great Brand Cases:
See the following brands share their best cases for Word of Mouth Marketing from concept to measurement:Carnival Cruise Lines, New York Times, Houlihans Restaurants, OPI Cosmetics
Register This Week for a Special Member Ogilvy Pricing:This deal will be put in place sometime tomorrow. Just register as a member for now. If you register before April 14, the conference fee is $995 for EVERYONE. That's member pricing. Then, it reverts to the regular pricing for nonmembers ($1495).
While you may have missed the initial deal, if you register as a non-member and enter "fanofogilvy" you will get $150 off the registration price.
I know its right but sometimes it feels so wrong - my love affair with BlogHer. Tomorrow is the first day of the BlogHer Business Summit in NYC. We are hosting the "Best Practices" track. I continue to believe strongly in the value of the BlogHer community for marketers. They are unique. Maybe they don't have the same reach as Federated Media. But they have a vision and integrity (I mean, FM has that too but BlogHer's is special).
The tie that binds members to the collective is stronger than other affiliations. It's born from the relationships developed online in what for all intent and purpose is a social network. These are made deeper during the annual big conference event (July in CA).
The NYC event is really for brand marketers to come together with BlogHer and talk about real ways to collaborate between marketer and blogger. We will be video-ing a bunch of it and will publish soon after. I, of course, cannot be there. Butthe 360° Digital Inlfuence team - Virginia, Laura and Kaitlyn (and I think Matt, too) will all be on hand. Stop in. Say hi.
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