Digital Influence Mapping Project

Idea Bar #14: Insight Service for Healthcare Pros

Healthcare companies including pharma are challenged with how to build relationships with physicians digitally. They have their direct marketing and, most importantly, their "detail" or sales teams who face increased scrutiny in terms of what they deliver to 'earn' doctors' attention.

Conversely, the most interesting social media innovation for physicians are private communities like Sermo that restrict how marketers can interact with the doctors in that community. How do you engage physicians onlne and in social media? And don't make the mistake of thinking your healthcare pro isn't online:

"Over 77% of online physicians used one form of social media or another to create, consume, or share medical content.

51% of online physicians forwarded useful content (eg – email, video, etc.) to a colleague".
Source – Jupiter Research, “Direct-to-Physician Online Marketing” - 2008

Deliver Useful Content

What's a marketer to do? Well, if you have a OTC product for, let's say, skincare or weight management, you might try being of-use to the doctors who serve patients with that condition. ("Skin Disorder" and "Weight Problem" are the #1 and #7 most popular health topic in social media respectively according to Forrester Research, “How Consumers Use Social Computing For Health”, 2007).

Create a Patient Insight Service from Your Listening Post Data

If you have an over the counter product, you don't need to worry about the current issues with adverse events reporting that is stiffling the use of Listening Posts by pharma. You can do what almost every marketer does today - establish a Listening Post to capture what consumers are saying publicly across social media - blogs, message boards, Twitter, Facebook, etc... - in relation to a product or topic.

If you make a skincare lotion, you will listen not just to what people say about your brand but to all the conversations that may intersect with your category and product in some way - "winter skin," "sun damage," or "skin whitening" if you are in China. These are examples of category terms. You might go broader to better understand the context of when people think and act on skincare.

You need to do this for your own efforts. It will affect your marcom effortsin may ways. Why not re-package what you learn and make that available as a service to doctors and dermatologists? You could create a valuable email update that can be delivered beyond simple email - subscribable RSS feed, mobile updates, smart phone application with update functionality (think how your CNN module delivers updates to the main screen).

You need to keep it simple. Think what we have all learned form the emails of the Obama campaign or the updates from Daily Candy - keep it short and simple. That also makes them well-suited to more mobile distribution. Here's an example of a simple insight with a related graph. I am sure given more time and analysis, these bits could become quite valuable.

 
Combine the conversation insight with a product performance graph or data point and you have been useful and reinforced a point about why your product stands out.

Distribution and Subscription

Creating a compelling content offer is one thing, getting it to docs and derms is another. But now you would have something valuable to deliver via partnerships, your own Web sites, even your advertising could feature content nuggets that drive you back to the service. There are tons of ways to get this out there and then build up a "list" of physicians.

A Whitepaper for brands ready for an enterprise-level social media plan

Ogilvy Enterprise Social Media v1 0

 

A few weeks back, I was asked to share my POV on what the more sophisticated brands are doing in socila media. It's not about a stand-out campaign covered in one of the trades,nor about the next brand to adopt Twitter. Many big brands have a few years of exploration under their belts and are turning to establishing a more strategic, enterprise-wide approach to using social media both to market and to change the way they do business.

Download and share the document. I promise to clean-up some clumsy typos but I wanted to get it out there even in a rough form to share some ideas and spark some discussion.

Thanks.  

Open Innovation Fuels Growth (But Can You Measure it)

Mindstorms Big Robot on Campus, the NetFlix Prize, The Electrolux Design Challenge - these are all classic high-profile examples of open innovation challenges or forums that invite "outsiders" in to innovate with companies. This is different than promoting an open-source marketplace like Linux or iPhone application development. These historic examples are not about tapping into a scalable marketplace of innovation (see Nesta's P&G Corporate Open Innovation Challenge as an example), they are about making their internal teams more creative, more productively innovative, and about investing in a culture of innovation (and, therefore, sustainable growth and defensible marketplace advantage). Hard to justify with quarterly earnings releases. But that is why purposeful business culture is hard and requires leadership.

I remember attending the MIT Media Lab on behalf of a funding company I worked for at that time (Discovery). Corporations would fund professors and teams at MIT to explore hugely interesting yet often esoteric-seeming topics. The reality of this program is that it always felt at arms length. I am not sure how many people at Discovery actually knew their company was involved with MIT. The best examples are when everyone knows. Here's what I think you get:

• Fresh brains thinking about problems without any of the internal constraints
• New enthusiasm and passion for problem soloving
• Healthy competition for internal teams who become a little more motivated to show their stuff in light of these 'outsiders.'
• and, of course, the main "hard" business impact that most comapnies claim is the true outcome: talent recruitment.

While this last point is key, it pales in comparison to the first few benefits which are all about cultivating a culture that leads to more innovation.

This open innovation continues to quietly grow. Historically "closed" company cultures are experimenting more and more with open innovation models. Here are some examples:

Ford's "American Journey 2.0” (disc:client)  - a challenge with the University of Michigan students to develop applications comaptible the Ford/Microsoft Sync platform. “Already with SYNC, we have proven that we can access information in the ‘cloud.’ This research gives us the opportunity to harness the power of student innovation to explore beyond those capabilities and develop what’s next,” said Venkatesh Prasad, group and technical leader of Ford’s Infotronics team in Research & Advanced Engineering.

VTech's partnership with Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) (disc: Vtech is a client of our company) - their program, Cultural Context of Design, puts industrial design students into Vtech to experience the full monty of how coporate culture affects design. They experience teh discipline of the business problem. One might argue that this sounds more like an internship program than open innovation. I disagree. The integration of design students with a fresh POV into the enterprise does inject innovation into the organization. Just looking at the images of prototypes in this month's Metropolis Magazine (not yet on their Web site, hmmm) makes that much clear.

HP Labs’ Web Services and Systems Lab (WSSL)support of the Open Publishing Lab at the Rochester Institute of Technology - the Open Publishing Lab explores the future of "publishing" and while their mission is a little squishy to me (and interestingly they exist in RIT's School of Print Media), HP's support may fall in this category of open innovation if they socialize what the RIT team learns and comes up with at HP. If this is a token gesture with one HP person attending next May's ImagineRIT Festival, then they may not reap the true innovation injection possible.
 

Can the business impact be measured?

What's great about each of these examples is not the embrace of some simplistic consumer-driven innovation (nothing wrong with that but it serves another purpose). Companies are identifying people who are especially smart about the challenges they face but are well outside the usual talent base of the company usually because they are students or represent a discipline that may be under-represented in a company (like designers!). In the best cases, the experience is highly visible within the organization and there is lots of interaction between outsiders and insiders.

I plan on setting up our own challenge as I see a tremendous application with the world of social media marketing and communications and social business. Yet how can I make the had-number bsiness case to a publicly traded company? Does the commitment for such a program rest solely on some qualitative impact to culture and business that a CEO either embraces or not? Can you attribute improved business perfomance to a well-integrated innovation project?  

Perpetual Beta: The Communications Pro of the Future - Part 4

"The Communications pro of the future must be a master of three important disciplines: Radical Listening, Social Influence, and Perpetual Beta. Within each are new practical skills that will define the true PR master – the next generation ‘”trusted advisor.” "

 

The following is the fourth in a series on the skills of the communications professional circa 2010:

Perpetual Beta

“Nothing is ever finished.”  “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”  “Get ‘pretty good’ out the door and we’ll improve it based upon feedback.”  “We have to be in market, like, tomorrow…”

Sound familiar? Let’ s face it, the days of “cathedral building” where we plan a big program for months and then launch it, watch it go and count the impressions – those days are over. We will succeed as communications pros the more we attune ourselves to being nimble, resourceful, and willing to optimize programs once they are out in public. Being fast on our feet doesn’t begin to describe what’s necessary. We need to have playbooks in our heads or literally ‘playbooks’ of what to do if this happens next and so forth. In a complex world, you cannot anticipate how a marcom program will rollout (or even “unravel”). This type of dynamic will either make you crazy or, if you adopt a judo-like attitude, will become one of the most exciting parts of the job. 

1. Run quick pilot programs & evaluate on-the-fly
   We can call for “strategy” until we are blue in the face. Many brands now need experience in-market with new innovative programs. They need pilots with a beginning, middle and an end. And they need a solid measurement model to judge the efficacy of the program.
2. Train teams continuously
   Stop believing that the twenty-somethings in your organization will effortlessly transform your organization into a social media juggernaut. We need to train – ourselves, our colleagues, our business partners/clients. It’s time for an enduring commitment to training. We have one of the most thorough and never-ending approach to training that I know of out there. Anything less would not prepare us for what we face everyday.
3. Integrate new technologies into our lives
   You cannot be expert at how to use social media to affect business simply by observation. You cannot just read a book. You need to roll up your sleeves and use Twitter, Facebook, Posterous or whatever the next new thing is. Give yourself permission to experiment and explore. It will pay off and the time sacrifice will become worth it.
4. Always be innovating
   Once you have a pretty solid solution to a communications problem, know that it’s time to come up with a fresh approach. If you build a rhythm of constantly innovating, you will get used to it and be able to bring new solutions constantly. Never rest. Never fall back into a rut.
   
   
   Embrace the Complexity
   This is a great time to be a Communications professional. There is a freshness to the discipline thanks to social media and an increasingly complex marcom universe. We are all participating in the transformation of public relations. Our mastery of new skills will guarantee our role as strategic advisors who design communications plans that have big impact. Add these skills to the expertise most walk through the door with and we will be that powerful Communications Professional of the Future – driving business results, building brand reputation, and helping our businesses transform.
   

A Word on "Judgement:"

One thing that these skills cannot deliver on their own is ‘judgment’ and as Marcia Silverman, retiring CEO of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, and one of the true ‘great ones’ in the business, once told me, good judgment is often the defining characteristic of a truly great public relations practitioner. So, after you have honed all of these practical skills, never lose sight of that elusive quality - good judgement. Find it in mentors. Discover it the hard way - through experience. Just never underestimate how valuable a skill it really is.

Useful "beta" resources:

The Future of Advertising, PR and Social Media: Two Directions

The Daily Influence (an Ogilvy PR beta reader)

3 Trends in Integrating Social Media 

Engagement Marketing: The Communications Pro of the Future - Part 3

"The Communications pro of the future must be a master of three important disciplines: Radical Listening, Social Influence, and Perpetual Beta. Within each are new practical skills that will define the true PR master – the next generation ‘”trusted advisor.” "

 

The following is the third in a series on the skills of the communications professional circa 2010:

Engagement Marketing

The word “engagement” has been overused as we all try to find a vocabulary to describe a shift towards a more participatory role with customers. As brands we are either facilitating customer-to-customer participation or jumping in ourselves to take part when that makes sense. Engagement means an openness and directness, as well as, involved. But what about “marketing?” Isn’t that the other side of the house? Isn’t that what they do over there? Not anymore. Communications pros must be able to plan and execute programs that depend upon the interrelation of many disciplines and certainly those we clump into the marketing and communications buckets.

1. Create integrated marketing and communications strategy
   Earned and paid media can have a compound effect when integrated well. We can take the lead on understanding and planning for integration.
2. Operate engagement programs not just deliver messages
   Engagement programs deliver some intrinsic value to the influencer. They earn their attention and hopefully their advocacy because we thought long and hard about what they would get out of our relationship. That is different than delivering messages to a hungry media ecosystem.
3. Practice social media relations & crisis management
   Things move pretty fast in social media especially when a crisis appears. Social media relations is a nuanced difference from traditional media relations. It is more “hands-on” and requires a commitment to relationship building.
4. Design and deploy advanced search engine optimization
   Search engine optimization (SEO) is fundamental to PR. We need to stop deferring that work to technologists and start driving that work.
5. Manage communities
   From customers to enthusiasts, relevant brand communities are springing up everywhere. Rather than treat community management as the ancient art of the Well or AOL, we need to embrace the advocacy power of communities.  When do we build and when do we become part of an existing community?
6. Create and execute multimedia content strategy
   We no longer tell our stories via text. We must become masters of multimedia storytelling and then distributing those stories in the most efficient platforms available from YouTube to Flickr and more.
7. Model performance metrics for paid and earned media programs
   Are we winning or are we losing? We need to know that immediately upon being in-market with a program. We need new performance metrics that understand word of mouth via social media and make it possible to judge performance now.

Useful "engagement" resources:

Social IRM - Influencer Relationship Management Pt 2

Best Practice Disclosure: What Brands Should Do (and Why)

Building Authentic Customer Communities: American Express & Meetup

The Idea Bar (Engagement Ideas)

Conversation Impact Social Media Measurement Model by Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence

Radical Listening: The Communications Pro of the Future - Part 2

"The Communications pro of the future must be a master of three important disciplines: Radical Listening, Social Influence, and Perpetual Beta. Within each are new practical skills that will define the true PR master – the next generation ‘”trusted advisor.” "

 

The following is the second in a series on the skills of the communications professional circa 2010:

 

 

With all of the conversation we are sharing via Twitter, forums, blogs and all of the self-expression embedded in videos, Flickr galleries and audio shows, consumers are telling us what they care about in plain sight. They are talking about the brands that matter to them and more importantly about the things that vex them and excite their passions. They are telling us what is relevant to them. We need more than active listening. We need radical listening. And let’s face it, the public relations field has always been better at talking than listening.

 

Here are the practical skills that add up to ‘Radical Listening’

 

1. Set up and operate live 'listening posts' online and offline to listen and respond
   Whether setting up a fast Twitter search via your TweetDeck or a more comprehensive monitoring consumer generated media (cgm)program, the Communications pro needs to know how to quickly tap into what people are saying across Facebook, Twitter, blogs, forums and opinions sites. This drives marcom insight and our ability to manage a rapid response effort to what people are saying now.
2. Develop "messages" based upon social behavior
   Instead of developing a message platform purely based upon the strengths and ambitions of a brand (how we want to be seen), we can now listen to what is important to customers and constituents via Listening Posts and search engine behavior to ensure our platform is relevant to their stated needs.
3. Identify and engage new influencers, online and offline, niche and mass-follower
   It’s not enough to get a mention in a might-reach blog just as you might in a newspaper. We live in the world of the Long Tail where there are millions of new influencers with relevant audiences in the hundreds. Assessing who is actually both relevant and influential - bloggers, Twitterers, Facebook group-owners, message board-mavens – is critical to achieving business goals today.
4. Participate in conversations, not just 'messaging'
   When someone bashes your brand on Twitter, how will you respond? Chances are you are more apt to jump into a back and forth conversation with customers and influencers today than ten years ago. That means having a keen ear for conversation and feeling confident that you can support your brands position without resorting to recitation of a press release.
5. Be a champion of WOMM best practices especially ethics
   Word of mouth marketing is social media. It relies on open and transparent exchange with others online and offline. We have a new imperative around ethics and best practices. This much is made clear by the FTC’s new Guidelines around Endorsement. We need to lead the way in ethical and productive use of social media to have impact and protect reputation.

Useful "listening" resources:

5 Steps to Choosing the Right Listening Post Solution

The Trends in Next Generation Listening Posts (and Looking Glass)

Links for Listening (2008)

WOMMA Ethics Code

Social IRM - Influencer Relationship Management Pt 1

 

The Communications Pro of the Future (2010 Edition) Part 1

The public relations discipline is changing. Social media and the complexity of our lives are conspiring to alter the job and its relevance to business. If PR evolves based upon these pressures, it will become one of the most important contributors to the health and growth of business. If we do not step up, PR may become a tactical trade applied as an embellishment to the complex marketing programs of tomorrow. Our path will largely be determined by how we tackle two big phenomena: social media and complexity. 

Let's just say that I havce an expansive view of the role of the communications professional. Last year, I outlined additional responsibilities and skills that challenge the traditional PR role. While the literal term "public relations" is even more relevant in this expanded view, the professional term may be irrevocably tarnished by images of media relations flacks - real or imagined. So, despite the chance for aliteration, we need to define the role of the "communications pro." In a December opinion piece for PR Week, I made the case for communications experts taking the lead on defining the brand and the strategy for engaging "publics" amidst an all-discipline, 360 approach. That means - in some cases - that with advertising creatives, digital marketers, store marketers and others around the planning table, it may be the communications experts who need to lead the strategy. This year, we have seen the rise of importance of communications (vs. marketing) in big global campaigns for brands.

To rise to that challenge, communications professionals need to master new skills (and poilish up old ones) to lead in this new environment.

The True Impact of Social Media on the Profession

Social media is pushing marketing and communications to work together more than ever before. Each discipline has something distinct to offer. Both need to grow to meet each other halfway and produce the biggest impact for brands hungry to transform the way they talk with customers. Social media demands new skills and old skills combined in new ways. The way we earn people’s attention and advocacy relates in some ways to the way we earned traditional media coverage but remains separate and full of nuance. We admit that in the volumes of new blogger outreach guidelines and internal social media policies we all create. Would these really exist if there weren’t a material difference?

Digital and social media puts consumers much more squarely in the driver’s seat of their own lives. We find content via the great aggregator – Google – when and where we need it. We are not waiting for the front page of the newspaper to flop open on our laps to tell us which way the wind blows. Nor are we waiting for the gardening show to come on at 7pm on HGTV to get our fill of our passion for orchids. The fact that 80% of us start our Internet session on Google makes clear that reputation and even business today has a lot more to do with what shows up in those first 10 blue links than most mass media. 

Social media is not some new channel. At the end of the day, the true significance of social media for us as communications experts is all about word of mouth. Peers, friends, ‘strangers with expertise’ sharing about their favorite hotel, what they hate about their car, whether their medication is helping them. What we say to each other is most often far more trustworthy and impactful than any other form of marketing or communications. If reputations are reflected in search results than they are defined in the millions of conversations and word of mouth mentions across the social Web. How to productively engage with this universe of millions of potential influencers is the new challenge, and we had better get busy.

We Need to Master Complexity

The list of how social media affects us goes on. As for complexity, that translates into severe limits on our attention compared to the abundance of marketing messages popping up in every elevator, smartphone or even bathroom we, as consumers, use throughout our day. That means more and more complex marketing and communications programs (marcom) to try and connect with customers.  That means a return to trying to understand people better (dare I say psychology and just plain listening?) and what is important to them vs. just trying to surprise them at the bus stop, in the mall or when they are trying to have a conversation with friends. Interruptive marketing will no longer cut it as a core strategy. We have to stop worrying about whether “engagement” sounds like a buzz word and just start practicing it. Public relations is ideally suited to earn people’s attention and advocacy. But the answer to scale likely sits in many of the other marketing disciplines. The communications pro of the future needs to know this. She needs to know how marketing and communications works. She needs to be a master of collaboration with digital marketing experts, CRM gurus, advertising creatives and more. She needs to live comfortably in complexity.

The Communications pro of the future must be a master of three important disciplines: Radical Listening, Social Influence, and Perpetual Beta. Within each are new practical skills that will define the true PR master – the next generation ‘”trusted advisor.” Of course there is one final, critical ingredient: judgment. More on that later.

Next up: Radical Listening...

My Twitter Account Was Hacked

My Twitter account was hacked. Second time this has happened (different scam this time). I clicked on a link from someone I follow. I did nothing else. The page never even loaded, Then several days later in one-fell-swoop, my account started DMing all my followers in the course of a few minutes with a similarly personal sounding message and prompt to click on an "IQ Me" link.

Total scam artists as they rope you into a fee service should you ever actually click through and take the quiz. I Googled them.This is the kind of stuff the FTC is trying to stop. Let's help them in any way we can and keep the tweetstream clean.

My apologies for anyone affected. Don't click on any 'IQ test' link prompts from me in a DM.

The one good news? Thanks to some great followers - @NathanRichie, @SusanEJacobsen, @ConversationAge, @thebrandbuilder, @Kat4PR, @labfly, and especially @mrgingold who let me know in the first place.

Here is a helpful (if a bit admonishing) link ot a helpul blogpost from ChelPixie: http://chelpixie.com/blog/2009/11/02/recovering-from-twitter-phishing/

Headlines from the 2009 Word of Mouth Marketing Association Summit Part 2

There were more sessions to go to than anyone could manage. That's a nice problem to have. The fact that the presentations are already up in the WOMMA Member Center eases that pain a bit. I wanted to share the session highlights from the event for me. I was surprised. I knew the conference would be great yet I thought so because of the wall-to-wall brand cases. We had those. The WOMMY Award Winners were particularly compelling. Still, the keynotes and general sessions were so strong that I would have gone just for those.

Here are my hightlights:

Keynote - Emanuel Rosen did an inspirational job and also just had a well-structured presentation with stories at the center and take-away points that were meangful.Those of us who speak often could learn a lot from his simplicity. He told us what we could learn from non-profits nd the lessons really were relevant. Everyone really liked his presentation.

 

Keynote - Rob BonDurant from Patagonia was the right mix of culture and marketing detail. Here's a guy who totally understands the power of brand, where it comes from and just how to drive folks to conversion at the same time. Too many CMO-types become disconnnected with the nuts and bolts of how marketing works. That won't fly in the social media age.

 
Keynote - Sugarland, Kristian Bush was terrific. (above: Gayle, his manager, Kristian and Ted Wright/Fizz) More than one person told me after that they had never listened to them before but were now complete fans just because of Kristian's enthusiasm and genuiness (and the kickass song they played/showed from their Christmas album.) I had the opportunity to speak with him offline and he shared even more detail about the WOM marketing activity that he does to remain genuinely connected to fans. I loved that he went into Walmarts and secretly hid concert tix, captured it all on a Flip Video cam to post online for fans. What he didn't share onstage about that whole Walmart integration was a simple tactic where he called up Walmart store managers the day the promotion (a DVD) broke to leave them a personal vmail about it. Imagine how that fueled their enthusiasm. His insight about how moments in time become key memories and stories. That led them to create concert-specific posters and t-shirts. I told him how I often use "tell everyone a favorite concert" as a tremendous ice-breaker for groups. (The Cult at Felt Forum in 198x with Rick Rubin on the sound board) Ted Wright from Fizz deserves all our gratitude for connecting Kristian with all of us.

 
Keynote - FTC and social media with Chuck Harwood/FTC, Tony DiResta/legal counsel for WOMMA, Jory DesJardins/BlogHer, Sean Corcoran/Forrester and led by Paul Rand/ the next President of the Board at WOMMA (above: Tony, Jory, Sean and Chuck). All the panelists contributed a great POV and it was especially valuable to get such a thorough walk-through from Chuck Harwood.  Our WOMMA work with the FTC has paid off in such a strong relationship. Ethics will expand again as a key issue and WOMMA's Legal Affairs Group will help protect a lot of brands with our best practices.

General Session - Customer Service with Levis, Bunn, Comcast and Best Buy's Twelpforce. I predict that customer service will become a bigger part of WOMMA in the future. Frank's work at Comcast and John's at Twelpforce/Best Buy have developed pretty sophisticated procedures and teams. Still, I was struck by the genuiness of Tom Asher from Levi Strauss. he had buttons made up for his team with their primary purpose - "I live to make your butt look great" (paraphrasing from memory). His team wants to deliver one level of service for everybody. He shared an anecdote about shipping an urgent package of black jeans to Thailand that only later they learned were for Steven Seagal on set for a movie. Customer Service sits at the heart of word of mouth. Time and time again, we head from customer service experts who see their job as creating vocal advocates for their brands.  

General Session - Academic Panel with Wharton, Tel Aviv University, Fordham, our own Walter Carl from ChatThreads and Brad Fey. Heavy stuff. I was not able to see the whole session but hard lots of the more advanced marketers in the room appreciated its heft and substance.  

Breakout Sessions
I got to as many sessions as possible. Only one truly disappointed. If I were to point our three sessions that had special relevance for me amidst all of the great ones. I would call out:

HP's Kari Homan shared not only about a simple metric they created around the revenue generated by postive word of mouth (and the loss from negative WOM), but she also shared about how they are organized internally. Their Digital Strategy group is a federation of marketers with program managers in 5 segments including mobile and social media. Rather than create a separate social media task force or center of excellence, they have opted for a model where social media is integrated with marketing (is this at the expense of "communications" integration?).

Ogilvy's Kaitlyn Wilkins and Blogher's Jory Des Jardins shared their case for Tropicana whcih was complex and highly integrated. I am obviously connected to this project and therefore biased. Still, this is a great case and both are passionate, insightful presenters.

Yvonne Nava from iTunes oulined how they had used Vitrue's Facebook management software to really optimze how they were using Facbook overall. her presentation ratified a lot of our own embrace of the "conversation calendar" model for engaging fans. ("Conversation Calendar" is a term that Facebook uses to describe the plan of differnt interactions delivered continuously through a brand page.). In iTunes case they have a spectacular well of content (music, videos, et al). Other brands may not have such an obviously valuable content asset but will find that they can program a rich calendar of interactions from media, offers, conversation starters, applications and events. 

Lot of lessons learned over the past week. I returned completely energized (okay, a bit tired) with fresh ways of looking at things. That's what you want from a conference experience.

Twitter Advertising May Cure Itself

Twitter advertising is not the devil's work. I once thought it was. Now it seems more like an evolution towards an ad form that will serve both users and brands. I don't know what that ad form will be exactly but the paid tweet we see today is not it. During this evolution, twitter advertising will likely piss off a lot of people. Here's why it will "cure itself:"

1. Full Disclosure is a Must: Tweets that are from paid or otherwise compensated advertisers must include a disclosure like (#ad) or (#Sponsor) to be in compliance with the new FTC Guidelines. With that clarity, followers will decide themselves if they want to continue to follow folks who deliver paid messages

2. Relevance Requires Few Ads: users who rent out their tweets will have to do so judiciously both choosing sponsors they care to endorse and keeping them extremely limited. So-called "trust agents" will lose trust, or worse, relevance for their readers if they pump out too many paid messages

3. New Formats on the Horizon: clearly Twitter, itself, is working behind the scenes on revenue (read: advertising vs. premium service fees). Not only that but services like ad.ly will continue to explore acceptable formats. If I can quickly see the paid tweets in my Tweetdeck stream becuase they are shaded differently or feature some other visual marker, that is to everyone's benefit.

4. Advertisers Will Lose Interest: Initially the format will draw the lazy marketer (thanks to Erik Boles and his comment on Scoble's post below). They will seek a reach play and what they really need is a "relevant reach" play combined with some string engagement on another platform. They will seek click throughs form tweets as a measure of success and when that eventually doesn't deliver business success for clients, the fad will die off.

 

Good Post on Subject From Robert Scoble

Scoble has a good post on Twitter advertising and based on today's NYTimes article on the subject, this will likely become a bigger deal for us Twitter users in the short term.  Robert explains his initial reaction to tweet-based adverts and then his exploration once joining ad.ly.

"But all this stuff makes me worried for the future of Twitter. I think Twitter needs to come out for or against these new ad networks and needs to build a platform that properly identifies advertising tweets via a different color. I’d love to be able to “tag” Tweets using my SuperTweet idea and write “advertisement” in the SuperTweet, which would tell everyone that that Tweet is an ad."

Read the comment stream - it's worth it.