Digital Influence Mapping Project

What is Social Shopping Becoming?

   

Shopping can be one of the most social activities. Then again, I often shop alone. It really depends on what I am going for. On the more social side you have:

• asking friends what they think of a particular Victorinox rolly bag

• reviewing ratings or reviews by strangers or friends
• group buying which is really a form of crowd-buying - still quite social
• finding endorsements from friends or 'strangers with expertise'
• Wish lists and registries
• Affiliate sales networks (e.g. Amazon)
• Relevant recommendations (e.g. iTunes Genius function)

As word of mouth is one of the most influential purchase drivers across many product categories, it only makes sense that we will all continue to push the intersection of social media and shopping.From product reviews like the robust ones found in Amazon, YELP and TripAdvisor to the offshoots like Trusted Opinion, review have been around since the dawn of time. For any brand that sells a product or service, I would rank reviews as the most underleveraged social strategy just behind search engine optimization. If you don't have one, get a product review strategy especially if you are a retailer or sell a retail product of some kind.

If product reviews are fundamental, then what is next? Three things I can see emerging fast:

• Real-time Recommendations via Facebook, Twitter and other social networks
• A new wave of Affiliate Marketing
• Event Shopping

Real-time Recommendations

While reviews may have defined social shopping over the past 10 years, now it is about "real-time recommendations" - a phrase I first heard from Sean Muzzy at Neo@Ogilvy. When I am shopping - that search, assess, decide and purchase activity - how can I tap into my own social graph to get an opinion or some type of feedback?

Some retailers are doing this by integrating Facebook Connect like the backpack manufacturer Jansport. By embeding the Facebook login in the ecommerce pages, I can share my interest in the 22" Purple Sunflower via facebook. I can see what my friends may have said or if they have "liked" it. This will become standard practice for many of us on those products where we value a second opinion. As a business traveler, luggage is one of tehose categories (and I would hope as a Facebook friend you would wave me off the purple sunflower motif for my own good).

Many of us in digital marketing especially on the social media side of life have been creating and stewarding programs for brands that pay off in the middle or top of the funnel - Engagement up to Awareness. Or our approach to driving action or conversion has been a click-through or coupon download or similar action. Now we really can apply "social" to not just shopping but to conversion or sales.

Affiliate Marketing
While the power of building authentic positive word of mouth and even recommendation for a product will drive product preference (see our Conversation Impact measurement model), using social to drive sales will become a new focus for many of us.

As a blogger, would I raise my hand to become an affiliate marketer for the brands, I myself, use and appreciate? Yes. As marketers continue to over-do influencer outreach - trying to capture the attention of influentials like mombloggers and food bloggers such that they authentically talk about products - we will see some simpler and more direct solutions to transparently engage those influencers as affiliate marketers. The benefit back to them is a percentage of sales - all very transparent, of course. Clearly that works best for retail brands vs. manufacturers. I could easily imagine having a Hugo Boss store widget on my site ads the ultimate storefront for black jeans (hell, just my clickthroughs alone would move the needle).

Curated Event Shopping
Remember the Amazon "Gold Box"? It was a collection of time-sensitive specials on Amazon that you could browse through. I never bought anything and I guess others didn't fare much better as the feature is gone.

Now I subscribe to ideeli.com. They send me emails of sales events on great stuff - mostly for women. I have bought some great jewelry there for my wife. If I knew anything about bags, I am certain I could score some gems there as the always seem to have some great ones. The pricess are advantageous - but like the Home Shopping Network, sales are timed so you need to act promptly. The goods are curated and high quality. The combination of timeliness and quality curation makes it sweet. I have told many people about ideeli.com which is another way the "social" quality of the service works. (Essentially, it gives me a little bit of 'social capital' to spend with people I know.)  

There are a lot more innovations on social shopping happening than just these three trends. In fact, the social shopping space is exploding with innovation.

New WOMMA Video Preps You For FTC Guidelines

Our WOM enthusiast at WOMMA, John Moore, has started a new series of videos as part of his overall All Things WOM blog/voice. His first "Video Ditty" is Don't Tell. Do Ask. and focuses on some common ways to do best practice word of mouth marketing no matter which way the FTC lands on its proposed guidelines...

The Lesson Beneath "PR in Silicon Valley"

The NYTimes.com ran a story over the weekend (that finally ended up in the print edition Business section) about the social nature of public relations efforts on behalf of Web 2.0 startups in Silicon Valley called "Spinning the Web - PR in Silicon Valley." They mean old school "social" as their example is a PR pro in the Valley who makes hay of who she knows and her ability to get clients mentioned by those who's who of tech.

Is this back-to-the-future? Hasn't Silicon Valley always been a club of sorts? Now that some of those influencers run popular media properties like Digg and social networks like Twitter that have the 'reach' previously reserved for older more established media properties, now that every business analyst worth her salt gets "news" via an eclectic RSS collection complete with new influencer blogs and Twitter search results (see our TheDailyInfluence.com), this evolution is now complete. I have visions of Pam Alexander and her notorious networking social events that helped her rise to mythical status.

But underneath the story of one publicist/PR person who manages a network of influencers vs. pumping out press releases, is the true story of change.

Public Relations is quickly adapting to the practice of identifying new influencers who have their own public platform and following and can do more to raise awareness and engagement with relevant companies and brands than traditional media relations. This is not new. And for as many examples of old school PR shops who rely on press releases to gain "coverage", there are 5 more sophisticated "new communications" firms who not only understand the phenomena of word of mouth marketing via new influencers and networks of interest groups. Many, like ours, have gotten pretty sophisticated with the process of connecting with vast, new collections of third parties. 

The Silicon Valley tribes (Tech companies, VC, Web 2.0 startups, popular bloggers/twitters) is but one microcosm.

Influencer Segmentation
Turning 'working a crowd' into an effective and scaleable approach to engaging relevant third parties such that they will authentically want to share about a new product, an intriguing service or just cause is about seeing the millions of affinity "groups" online, gauging inlfuence amongst their "members" and then taking the care to provide them a true exchange of value.

For a recent automotive project, we purposely went beyond the car bloggers and even the social media echo-chamber (top bloggers in social media) to identify 6 additional segments. Each is relevant to the brand from parent bloggers (don't forget the dads in your mad-dash to court the mom bloggers!), to design geeks to eco-dabblers (regular folks who care about being 'green' and are willing to make some decisions to be more so).

For a financial services project, we have identified 16 interest groups - things that draw people together online - passions. Within each are different influencers defined by data and qualitative analysis. While Silicon Valley relies on influencers within the tech and social media circles we all know; the rest of the broad universe has its own influencers who you might not instantly recognize.

The article captures the relationship-driven nature of Silicon Valley public relations now dominated by new media properties and individuals. What it's really pointing out is the explosion of new influencers that we identify, build relationships and rely on to reach relevant people on behalf of companies and brands. The Silicon Valley tribes are but one small slice. 

Corporate Guide for Social Media - Redux

Forbes published yet another summary of what CEOs ought to be considering as they ponder guidelines for use of social media within the company. It used to be "blogging guidelines" - many of us created them for our companies years ago - IBM, Yahoo, Ogilvy. We have since expanded ours to cover more recent platforms and behaviors like Twitter and the hyper-public status of Facebook profiles (I encourage staff to think of their Facebook presence as a professional outpost - forget trying to draw a line between "private" and professional)

Our attitude towards our team is to encourage them to communicate not discourage. We are, after all, professional communicators. Our guidlines are about empowerment.

We take a lot for granted. I heard of a client who just recently made it possible for staff to access YouTube and Facebook. I think that type of restrictive access is more prevelant than I would have guessed.

Joshua-Michéle Ross from O'Reilly pens this particular list. The parts that capture a great spirit include:

"Build your policies around job performance, not fuzzy concerns about productivity.

If your employees are using Facebook at work, they are also likely checking work e-mail after dinner or at odd hours of the day. Don't ask them to give up the former if you expect them to continue the latter. If you have good performance measurements, playing the "lost productivity" card is a canard.

Begin from a Position of Trust.

While there are possible negatives involved in having employees on the social Web, most employees have common sense. Begin with a set of possibilities first (increasing awareness, improving customer service, gaining customer insight and so on) then draw up a list of worst-case scenarios (bad mouthing the company, inappropriate language, leaking IP, to name a few)..."

I have attached a draft of our own social media policy for our staff as it may be helpful to you.

Download OgilvyPR_Draft_SocMediaPolicy_v2009

Choosing Marketing Partners With "Social Juice"

Why do we ever choose marketing partners?

Why did Mars ink a deal with Nascar?

Why would SkiDoo partner with Burton snowboards?

Why did Duracell partner with the Children's Hospital at UCLA last winter?

Why did Kellogs partner with Feeding America?

Partners are either willing to fund marketing efforts or, more often, extend marketing reach via a new channel, affinity group or customer base. There are also the partnerships driven by endorsement. Celebrities and non-profits come quickly to mind here. The marketer needs the celebrity endorsement ususally to drive earned media attention. They need the non-profit to lend credibility to their drive to give $100K to charity (tied to selling more of their core product or driving up relevant awareness, of course)

Today, you should always choose a partner with strong social media marketing muscle. This is particularly true in the case of the non-profit endorsement partnership. Many brand marketers form partnerships with non-profits to earn some good will with customers or prospects for aligning their product with a 'social good.' Certainly, many brands have a deep commitment to social causes that are organic to their brand. Starbucks and fair trade coffee come to mind. Many more have a more transitory, campaign-long commitment.

Too many brand marketers select a non profit partner based upon simple relevancy to an issue - are they supporting clean drinking water in parts of the globe; are they supporting breast cancer research?

Beyond the relevancy and responsibility of a non profit partner, brands should look for non profits who understand social media marketing and have built an advocacy network that they will activate on behlf of the partner initiative. They shoudl think of these partners as the most modern of marketing partners.

Look for a partner with:

• A strong email list with whom they connect regularly

• A Facebook presence with a clear sense of mission and growing fanbase
• Experience activating their members to action via digital channels
• Growing use of Twitter to keep followers up to date and driven to deeper engagement
• A "social Web" site: one that is designed for action and sharing not self-aggrandizing Flash movies or simple brochureware

Brands partner with non-profits to support those causes and introduce their supporters to the brand. Brands want to market products on the backs of causes. That's a bit of a cold way to put it but still true. Beyond their authentic interest in supporting a cause, brands are using the partnership as a marketing hook. They are using the "borrowed interest" of the cause to generate interest in their product.

To be as successful as possible, brands needs to leverage the grassroots marketing infrastructure of the non-profit. Many non profits are savvy advocacy organizations. Brands need that social media muscle to connect with people who will care about their partnership and drive them to some meaningful action.

Where is the Perfect Social Media Conference (for Marketers)?

There are too many social media conferences.

We are in a recession. Budgets on discretionary spending like travel and training are tight. And yet there are more social media conferences per square conference facility than before the crisis. This abundance of events speaks to a few trends in the marketplace:

• Marketers are taking social media seriously and want desperately to get a handle on how to do it well.

• An entire consulting industry - a bit of cottage industry - has sprung up over the years around social media and these folks bake in conference commitments in their "business plans". They must attend to drive awareness and business.
• Professional conference planners see the urgency around social media inside the enterprise and have shifted gears away from less popular subjects.

Many of these events are just no good.

The trends don't inherently deliver a great experience. I have been to a few this year, some that I would consider very valuable, some that were engaging or otherwise worthwhile and some that were just plain a waste of time. Now I seek the Perfect Social Media Conference.

Problems

• Same speakers: The trends I described force the same speakers out in front of folks again and again. Two problems with that. The first is obvious in that you hear the same key points - usually intended for newcomers - over and over again.

• Designed around speakers: The second problem - most conferences are designed around speakers - their needs, their credentials, their willingness to travel for free to speak. In today's economy, conferences should be designed around the learning experience they deliver for the paying attendee not around the speakers. This makes it difficult for the professional conference business with no skin in the subject matter to pull off any type of event that delivers significant value. All they can do is assemble speakers - usually the same ones - and hope that enough of them are informative, entertaining or inspiring.

• Over narrowing of the niche: One of the reasons I got a lot out of 140 characters, WOMM U. and even We Media was the diversity of the program and the participants. It wasn't all marketers. While I generally benefit from a marketing focus, marketing does not live in a vacuum. Too many conferences have an uneducated view of a profession. They believe that so long as all of the speakers come from the "marketing" organzation, or that all of them claim to be "bloggers" that they have created a focused event. I look at conferences as learning events. I learn from storytellers, media entrepeneurs, artists, non-profit advocates and more.

The Perfect Recipe for a Social Media Conference
There is no "perfect," but here are the ingredients for an event that is worth this brand marketer's investment of time and money:

• A program that is designed around learning not around speakers: if you start by outlining what your attendees will "know" and be able to "do" upon leaving, you stand a better chance of creating a compelling experience filled with great discussion leaders, engaging formats and tangible deliverables.

• Rigorous case studies with results: nothing teaches professionals better that really great stories of how others have done it. Many conferences include cases but take no care to ensure that rigor. We need business and marcom problems, insights that drive a program, creativity and real results. Too many people dress up a collection of social media tactics with no clear impact as a case study. That approach serves no one, not even the novice. As for results, I would argue we need good and bad. As someone reminded me, "what do we learn from success? Nothing."  I need case studies where we are not afraid to talk about failures and where we learned valuable lessons.

• Practical training from, get this, practitioners that is clearly distinguished between beginner and advanced: how many events have you gone to where the content and delivery was too basic to be of use. You tell yourself, "well, I guess that was designed for those new to social media marketing."  There is nothing wrong with social media 101, although if ever there was too well-trod territory, it is the introduction to social media and word of mouth marketing. identifying whether a session is intended for those just starting out or those with years of experience can only help set and meet the expectations of all those involved. 

• I need to hear practical lessons from those who actually do the work. If you are listening to someone tell you how social media marketing works and they have spoken at more than 6 events in one year, look a little closer. Chances are they are really a professional pundit with a shallow set of real experiences to pull from. Social media marketing is a new discipline that can best be learned from doing vs. observing. Look for those really doing the work for insight.

• Surprising inspiration: Conference organizers need to think long and hard about who will surprise participants espcially when those attendees are jaded marketers. Getting the CMO of brand X to speak is all well and good but often the real inspiration comes out of left field. Ray Bradbury once keynoted an unusual conference staged by Silicon Graphics way back when. I never would have expected such an inspiring talk about creativity and marketing.

• A social platform for discussion: conferences are as much about networking and being "social" in the service of business as they are about content delivery. Too many conferences don't plan for social interaction either by jamming in too many content delivery sessions (that "speaker-driven" mentality, again) or they rely on big meals as enough of a social platform. How can a conference plan around networking and even facilitate it? When I was with Discovery Channel some years back, we participated in a 'digital day' at MIT Media Lab (we were sponsors of the Lab). We broke down into groups of 12 or so and my group which also included Walt Mossberg participated in an hour-long exercise with a professor and his grad students studying filtering as it relates to email and messaging. That joint activity brought us together and gave us instant common ground for discussion. Not everything needs to be so structured nor does it need to just be the usual lunch hour here everyone spins off to address email business.

 
There are plenty of other things that can contribute to a worthwhile experience. Some things that help:

• I like smaller gatherings. Once you break the 500 person mark, I get a little numb.
• Focused sponsor exhibits where as much care has gone into curating the sponsors as teh sessions, themselves
• Diverse group of participants
• Easy to get to location (relatively inexpensive and a near airport)

These are the key ingredients I will look for in the events through the end of the year.  If you know of one, please let me know. Thanks.

The Exhuberance of Twitter: 140Characters

About 3 years ago, I attended Vloggercon in SF. It was held in the funky Swedish American Hall. Schlomo and company did a great job of extending the experience out for a few days and into a bar he owns. We brought a big brand there  and there were a few others there. Mostly it was the spectrum of folks who loved creating video programs online. Rocketboom were the video royalty at the event. Great pioneers like Zadi Diaz (EpicFU now) and Ryanne Hodson were there. Exhuberance. People were jazzed. It was a flat universe....mostly. Schlomo gave out "Bullshit" cards for audience members to hold up should someone on the altar start "selling" vs. sharing, so-to-speak.

A Twitter Community Emerges

I thought of this as I participated in Jeff Pulver's 140 Characters this past week in NYC. There is a flurry of Twitter events happening. From conferences to workshops to Tweetups. 140conf was a rapid-fire 2 days of folks from the social media "center" (sounds better than echochamber), publishing, news and media, politics, social causes, brands and much more. Rick Sanchez was there sticking his ....let's say 'foot' in his mouth. Wyclef Jean was there doing a gracious shout out with Jeff's kids. I was there with 3 brands on twitter. Folks came from across the globe for their 10 minutes on stage and two days of tweetups. People are as excited about Twitter as they have been about deomcratized video creation and distribution as they were about the historical tip of the spear - blogs.

People all over the world are excited about the flattening and immediacy brought on by Twitter. As more and more news (not News but news) is first transmitted via Twitter, people are once again comparing a new, more populist platform to the entrenched News businesses. Lots of mentions of the Tweets from Iran during the post election controversy and potests.

Twitter and Marketing

What does this have to do with marketing? Everything, of course. But unlike a marketing conference where just marketers come together with pre-packaged ideas of how to use social networks and ascending platforms like Twitter to sell stuff, 140 Characters, throws a whole bunch of enthusiasts together from different backgrounds to spark ideas and discussion which may lead itself to some real change and innovation. It reminds me a bit of what Dale and Andrew are doing with WeMedia.

We need more marketers at 140 Characters - both to learn and listen, but also to participate in the discussion about how Twitter and social media will continue to change how we communicate, who we trust, how we make decisions to buy stuff we need.

5 Steps to Choosing the Right Listening Post Solution

We always start with listening. We listen to what people say in blogs about things that matter to them, when they tweet about the brands in their lives, public discussions in forums and review sites. The social media (r)evolution has eaked along enough that most marketers would say they start with listening. We are presenting today at OMMA Social in NYC alongside our good friend Pepper Roukas at American Express. Our topic is Listening Posts. I wanted to share my experience choosing and creating solutions for ourselves and our clients.

Choose Wisely

How do you select the right listening "solution" for you? I say 'solution' as it isn't as simple as choosing a technology provider - one of the 120 or so who provide some form of cgm monitoring. Thinking it's all about technology will leave you with a technology contract and 2 months of data for which many execs in the company scratch their head and say "so what." To select and implement a program that has a quantifiable impact on your business, I would suggest following these five steps.

1. Define Your Listening Goals Across the Enterprise
CGM Listening can be a powerful additon to marketing, communications, customer service, product development and more. Different groups within the company can benefit. Since the infrastructire of a listening post has significant combined hard and soft costs, it only makes sense to try and leverage a solution across as many needs as possible.

There are really three essential purposes of a Listening Post:

• Guide marketing, communications and product strategy via insights from conversations
• Establish a rapid-response system to what is said across the Social Web
• Create a measurement benchmark and reporting system for word of mouth

Different groups will want a system that does different things. Marketing may want 1 and 3. Communications 2 and 3. Product development may want to learn insights from what customers are saying about the product. Customer Service may want a way to respond quickly to concerns and complaints.

It is possible that you need all of these bases covered. Just as likely is that one of these has become the urgent interest and you need to satisfy it without cutting yourself off from the future.

2. Map Out the Work Flow That Fits Your Organization
Whether your a communications team member, part of marketing or trying to solve cgm listening needs across the enterprise, taking a moment to map out how the information is collected, translated into insight and then applied to action will save you time and frustration later.

I purposely didn't say "document your requirements" - not because you shouldn't but more because its obvious. Starting by mapping data-to-insight-action and how the workflow can actually happen in your organization is a great place to start.

If you are prmarily looking for Marcom insight, who is responsible for that now? Is there a insights and research person in your midst who can shepard this new source? If so, how are their reports and insights recieved now? Are they used to working at a fast, real-time clip? How geeky are they from a lexicon to a technology way?  Can they handle the interface themselves or will they need help?

Who owns the action taken from the Listenin Post goals you determined above? That will tell you a lot about how the path the information must take to convert into first insight and then action.

You may need to outsource or get help from a trusted partner to do some of this. By mapping out the process, you will discover your needs ahead of time.

3. Create a Prototypical Report
It's always helpful to envison the solution. Then you can make decisions and build to get yourself there. Creating a prototypical report with real data is a giant step towards knowing what you want. I suggest that you think of two reports - the voluminous one that you just can't help yourself from making and the 1-pager that will get to the C-suite.

Start by defining the 'conversation criteria.' These are the terms and phrases that will help you find conversations on brand-related topics. It may be brand mentions, competitors but even more important are those topics that intersect between customers and the brand. If you are a bank or financial services firm, it may be discussions parents are having about sending their kids to college or buying a house. 

The conversation is what you put into the listening engine. How well you do this step will determine how useful the output of the engine.

You can actually get data two ways:

• You can ask one of the technology companies to do you a solid and let you test drive the service. This is tricky as many of the them require a significant 'boot-up' phase where they feed the conversatoin criteria in and weed out erroneous or spam data. Still it is possible with some.

• You can also do this by hand. Using many of the available listening programs out there, you can get a pretty good bead on what people are saying

4. Review 3-4 of the Recommended Leaders
Don't look at them all. You'll go blind, become resentful or just plain lose all your time to the task. Find the 2-3 you think fit what you need and then throw a wildcard choice in there.

Depending on your answer to #1 above, you will weight these things differently. Most listening post tasks can be broken down into four steps:

Collecting

• What is the source collection the service is using? Many subscribe to third party sources that are limited in terms of what they have in them (e.g. some may only look at 10m blogs)
• What types of cgm do they collect? Blogs, Twitter, Video, Traditional media, Forums, Review sites....

Rating and Sorting

• Are they keyword-based or is there a more rigorous sentiment process?

• If they claim a machine-driven sentiment rating system, can you see it in action? (this is one of the hardest things to get tech to do well)
• How do they facilitate cleaning up the most likely spam? This is asking how they optimize the collection.
• What is the interface for adding human rating to the results?
• What is their proprietary vocabulary for things like influence? Every technology company comes up with something and often it is quite...let's just say 'special.'
• Do they identify "influencers" or whatever they call them from within conversations and what criteria do they use to determine influence?

Reporting

• What are the top three reports the system can generate?
• What is the most useful visual report they can make? ( I know of whole systems that provide little value beyond a couple of cool visuals. I am not saying that is enough but don't underestimate the value of a great social graph visual to a senior executive)
• Can you create a one-pager, preferably a pdf, to make that C-suite deliverable? How easy does thsi system make that?

Insights into action

Does the technology provide insights and action steps? This is a big, trick question. None can do this and anyone who claims this is likely lying or positioning their staff as expert strategists. This is the big reason why my team only offers Listening POst powered by X(we use three different technologies). Our listening Post is made useful because of the care we put into efficiently distilling data into insights and action (and determining the objective and defining the conversation criteria at the head of the program.)

5. Run a 3-month Pilot Program
Everyone needs results quickly. Many of the platform choices you may make require time to get up and running and refine results. If you plan a 3 month pilot, you give yourself a reasonable amount of time to prove out the choice, refine it and be able to communicate to the rest of the organization the value the solution is providing.

3 Brands Amidst the Twitterverse

Brands were in the minority at the recent 140 Characters conference. All sorts of people were there with no single tribe majority.

Chris Brogan looked into the audience and declared, "...this is the makeup of Twitter...." With maybe 30 million people on Twitter I am not sure that statement is true but his intent was correct - there's a diverse collection of people and tribes on Twitter.  This diversity made the conference more interesting than many of the social media marketing conferences out there.  

I ran a session with smart marketers who are using Twitter and social media in their business and trying to figure out how to expand that use. We had:

• Kodak: Jennifer Cisney aka Chief Blogger

• Marriott: John Wolf - Senior Director,PR
• Time Warner Cable: Jeff Simmermon - Director Digital Communications

Each is actively on Twitter. They all shared some common experiences:

• The demand to use Twitter internally came from below not from above. While that may not be surprising, I would expect that by now plenty of CMOs and CEOs have felt the peer pressure to get their brands active in this space.

• Everyone has made mistakes on Twitter and survived. When I asked the audience who had made a mistake on Twitter a vast majority raised their hands. Most people there see Twitter as a forgiving universe where those who behave like human beings will earn acceptance from the heterogeneous community.

• Measuring ROI on these efforts lies in the future for now. While each company may be at a slightly different place in terms of adoption of socila media marketing as a core strategy, their twitter handles are embraced as a 'must-do' experiment.

Marriottintl talks at the corporate level (lots of sub-brands in the Marriott universe) with travelers interested in the brand. Often they offer deals or reminders of services. (like Marriott's free night promotion at 300 hotels outside North America)

Jennifer Cisney tweets about all things at the intersection of photography, social media and Kodak.
She has been with the company ten years and as her title suggests is very active in social media on behalf of Kodak.

Jeff and others at TWCable are trying to be helpful to customers by directing them towards customer service solutions while at the same time develop a communications-driven dialogue with customers.

Brands Must Proceed With Care
Earlier Peter Fasano from Coke commented on his own challenge driving social media inside the brand - "How do you steer a big ship with the agility of  a personal brand..." 

Via Twitter @macala made a point that I thought was dead on: "... More brands will try Twitter & create noise for visibility." We need to be careful how we use the platform. We cannot fall into the trap of just counting "mentions" of our brand in Twitter. It's teh quality of those mentions and teh conversations they are a part of that is valuable.

Some folks at the conference piped up that brands shouldn't be marketing at all and shoudl focus on just delivering great customer service. Many more people seem okay with brands on Twitter as the followers of major brands reveal (we do "choose" to follow, after all) 

Brands want to build real relationships with people for benign self-interest (being good to customers is good for business), or because they are actually staffed by people who want real, authentic relationships and see the transformative power of social media. That's who was on our panel. Yes, they want to achieve a business goal but they also respect the personal and trust-based nature of social media.

RESOURCE: Twitter for Business

We relaunched a new version of Twitter for Business: 6 Ways Brands Use Twitter. It features a presentation and a deeper-dive How-to guide that are very useful.

Practice Ethical WOM or Else

As more people become exposed to the proposed FTC Guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials the more they realize they may be facing some tough restrictions in the future. Thomas A. Cohn, a lawyer and former FTC Director sums it all up nicely in his article at Ecommerce News.

 The Setup:

"Blogs and online review sites have proliferated in recent years, as ostensibly "with-it" influencers offer "independent" reviews, endorsements and testimonials that increasingly drive consumer traffic to a wide variety of product sellers. However, as consumers are learning with great disappointment, many of those serving up rave online comments -- including coveted Mommy bloggers -- are being compensated by the marketers whose goods and services they're reviewing, either in direct fees or in the form of perks, discounts, giveaways and other rewards that constitute sponsorships of the content."

The Clue (as to what to do):

"In fact, most regulation of new-media and word-of-mouth marketing activities to date has been undertaken by the industry. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association ("WOMMA"), released an ethics code in February 2005, which emphasizes "honesty of ROI" ("relationship, opinion and identity") in all types of word-of-mouth marketing. Key provisions in the WOMMA Code of Ethics include a prohibition on the use by marketers of third parties to promote a product without disclosure of the relationship with the marketer when communicating with the public; a requirement that consumers who are speaking on behalf of the marketer give their honest opinions and clearly disclose their identities; and a prohibition on the targeting of children under 13.

WOMMA has revised that code since its initial release and also supplemented it with its "10 Principles for Ethical Contact by Marketers," for use when sending products to bloggers. The Commission has recognized WOMMA's ethical code and its role in word-of-mouth marketing, both in its 2006 letter to Commercial Alert and in the January 2008 notice in which the new examples were first proposed:

"The Commission has long believed that industry self-regulatory codes play an important role in consumer protection, and that the development of ethical standards emphasizing transparency for marketers who engage in new forms of marketing is an important step to this end." "

The Answer (in case the clue wasn't specific enough):

(Full disclosure: I am the President of the Board at WOMMA)

If brands and marketers joined WOMMA, they would demonstrate their commitment to the WOMMA Code of Ethics. That would signal a stronger desire amongst marketers to self-regulate. This move gives members the confidence that they are guided by best practices on ethics. WOMMA's code changes with the times. While the FTC is trying to make its first significant change in decades, WOMMA has a process to evolve from year to year as practices and technologies change. Full disclosure, one of the major issues concerning the FTC has always been at the heart of the WOMMA Code.

Brands can take the high road and join WOMMA now. Or they can react when the FTC Guidlines are put in place compelling them to fly right later.