Digital Influence Mapping Project

Social Media and the Mumbai Attacks

This is terrible and unfolding even as my family and I drive relatively safely up the east Coast of the US. Disatisfied with the brief radio reports, I dialed up CNN.com in the car. Quickly moved over to Twitter and began following the #mumbai hashtag. This has become a bit of a chaotic single channel for tweets from those in India and around the world. Some have truly insightful details. Some just express their heart for the people suffering. Some are reweeting rumor. Some are saying stupid things.

Chaos Sorting Itself Out

Like a lot of social media, the worldwide "we" are just figuring out how to use social media in events like this and it is incredibly compelling. Will we spin off multiple hashtags to allow for those with local, factual knowledge and others for well wishers?

Already there is a list of phone numbers at MumbaiHelp that may be helpful for people trying to get information about loved ones and the situation.

Tim Malbon has an excellent blog post that explores how Twitter is being used as of this morning (EST). Here's a bit:

"There were no doubt many well-meaning people Twittering. Some on the ground were no doubt using the service to share their personal horror and to connect with the outside world must have been a comfort. But very few were on the ground. Most participants were far away. There needs to be some way of working out who in a situation like this has more authority than someone else. Of course, simply being there isn’t necessarily an indication of authority, but it does provide some context."

I have seen Tweets asking people to state their source for information to cut through the chatter. Others are concerned that those Twittering with knowledge of the ground situation are giving the attackers information as they monitor Twitter. Not so sure that this is a real concern as there is no way currently to sort through the misinformation in Twitter.

@newmediajim (ace Twitterer and network cameraman gave out some good advice via his Twitter stream:

Be Accountable 11 minutes ago from web
Act Independently 11 minutes ago from web
Minimize Harm 11 minutes ago from web
Seek the Truth and Report It 11 minutes ago from web

I hope this violent attack comes to a close soon. My heart goes out to the people directly affected.

Marketing in a Recession: Change the Meaning of Brand-building

AdAge headlines their 3-minute video today featuring Nick Brien, CEO of Interpublic's Mediabrands - "Brand building must give way to hard sell during recession."

I agree with almost everything Mr. Brien says in the video. The headline misses the mark. It makes it sound like brand-building is superfluous in a recession/depression. Just as Mr. Brien says, the Chinese symbol for crisis has some double meaning in danger and opportunity, our opportunity is to redefine what we mean by "brand-building."

It should not be about "awareness." Awareness in an attention economy is fleeting at best. I constantly remark that I have a 60Gb brain in a 1 Terabyte world. I don't attempt to hold onto massive amounts of information anymore. I don't assume that if I am "unaware" of  a brand that it is no-good. I do what we all do - I Google it and off I go to "learning" about a brand or product.

Redefine Brand-building

Brand-building should be about relevance and being "of-use" to people. Or rather, being useful is more relevant today than being entertaining. Brand-building should not be thrown out in place of the had sell. We need to redefine the new, essential approach to brand-building. Most brands cannot accomplish hard sell without a lot of branding. Otherwise this becomes as Mr. Brien says, all about promotion - lower prices, free gifts, points for some other brand. That's where I disagree with him. If we devolve simply into promotions and price reductions, then most brands (those that aren't price leaders) see their sales maybe improve in the short run but see a long term reduction in value and a threat to their business.

The opportunity is to redefine brand-building as making brands more useful and even essential in people's lives. That's where creativity needs to go right now. And I don't care if it's from us, media companies, an ad agency, or a smart, little startup.

What will go away is the clever "breakthrough" advertising as THE solution to a brand's sales goals. We need to help customers deal with what will turn out to be a devastating and long recession. We need to actually help them and be "of-use" beyond even the simple features and benefits of a product label.

"Social Pleather"

A final note: Brands should not get desperate and adopt ill-fitting social good programs just to boost short term "same store sales." Consumers see through this or just don't care. This is what we call "Social Pleather" (thanks Rachel & Greg)- looks real but one touch and you realize that it is a poor imitation of the real thing. Most great brands have causes they care about and support. Starbucks announced today a promotion around 'Project Red' which will drive some revenue to AIDS in Africa programs. Starbucks has a history of supporting quality of life (often life-saving) programs in parts of the world that grow coffee for them. That fits and isn't 'Social Pleather'. Still so many brands think of unrelated causes as a sales booster.

State of Word of Mouth Marketing

The following is my speech from this month's Word of Mouth Marketing Summit 2008. It captures my POV on where we are at as a discipline and relects my role as the President of the WOMMA Board.

And yes, I started delivering it while inside the Weinermobile.

Welcome to the 2008 Word of Mouth Marketing Summit. Welcome to the Tipping Point!

This is the year when Word of Mouth marketing goes mainstream – it’s already on everybody’s lips, so-to-speak. There isn’t a CMO, a Communications Executive, a CEO at a big brand, a mid-size or small business that isn’t creating and getting smart on social media and word of mouth programs.

Word of Mouth Marketing is bigger than social media but it’s also what happens when you use social media well.

Isn’t that social media’s main goal  –  activate and amplify word of mouth, participation, contribution, recommendation and action. We are the social media marketing champions and leaders. The promise of social media is not about targeting ad buys in MySpace. It’s not simply technology. It’s about getting people talking and sharing.

It’s bigger than just blogs. Bigger than Facebook. Bigger than Twitter, FriendFeed or Yammer. Word of Mouth includes all of social media – the big tent. And so much more. It’s offline and online.....

Can Bloggers Drive Peaceful Dialogue in the Middle East?

Our Johns Hopkins graduate class is doing a project with the group Seeds of Peace. They are trying to bring peace to the Middle East by hosting leadership programs for the next generation of Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Their model involves very immersive dialogue through camp experiences and a sustained conversation between people whose politics or culture stresses suspicion, hatred and intolerance. They belong in social media. Can they bring their sober approach to promoting discussion to the global blogs and social networks or is that such an uncontrolled environment that their careful and thoughtful approach won't work?

I am no political expert. No expert on world peace or on Mideast culture or politics. I am a citizen of the US, aspiring citizen of the world, blogger and marketing and communications expert. So understand that is my POV in my comments (which do not reflect the POVs of any of my affiliations or employers).

I remember watching the WeMedia conference from London in 2006. An Iranian blogger joined the session via satellite feed and spoke of tens of thousands of Iranian bloggers. I loved the idea that so many people within what we, in the West, always considerd a repressive regime, could be finding a way to express their personal opinions online. Having met many bloggers from around the world, I have a naive belief that having so many individuals talking and meeting online will, in its own way, contribute to peace. I love reading Global Voices Online for all the variety of people blogging around the world.

Iranian BlogFather, Hoder, Arrested

Hossein Derakhshan (aka Hoder), an Iranian blogger, has apparently been arrested by the Iranian government and been accused of spying on behalf of Israel. You can sample the various stores about this event below (it would be a step in the right direction if Iranian news source Jahan News had an English-language version as I would like to understand their POV - couldn't find stories in Aljazeera either):

• Iran Executes Man in Spy Case, and Blogger’s Arrest Is Reported - NY Times

• Iranian Blogger Hossein Derakhshan Arrested - Huffington Post

• Iranian blogger arrested 'as Israeli spy' - The Guardian

• Iranian blogger arrested as Israeli spy - Jerusalem Post

Now Hoder has been supportive of the Iranian government (specific people and maybe not some others) and is not the traditional critic gone too far (okay, maybe he criticized the wrong person but he is reported to be a patriot for Iran). He traveled to Israel. He posted POVs that humanized Israelis bucking the dogma that demonized them in many pro-Iranian publications. He remained super-critical of the US government's attempt to hurt Iran. 

I cannot know what Hoder did or did not do. But it makes me think about the role that social media can play in terms of promoting discussion across cultures and borders. Hoder has two blogs - one in English and one in Persian. He is making an effort to communicate beyond his borders. To my knowledge, he is not inciting violence even while he voices provocative ideas. 

While Seeds of Peace brings young leaders-to-be together to confront their bias and learn compassion and understanding, can this be extended by hosting or supporting sustained conversations online via blogs and social networks? Those same people who come to the Seeds experience are best equipped to have those conversations with bloggers from Iran, Iraq, Israel - you name it. Or is the blogosphere too wild a place to have sane discussions about such heartfelt and passionate issues?  Just as Seeds uses a tremendous amount of expertise to have safe and rational conversations in the camp experience, is there any way to have the same online?

The first step is to not persecute bloggers - if that is what is happening to Hoder.

The Voices of the Digital Influencers Class

 

This semester our graduate class at Johns Hopkins on PR in the Age of Digital Influence maintained a NING social network instead of individual blogs. The Digital Influencers social network and conversation can be found here. You will see a really interesting string of conversations about our reading - Influence, Measurement, Co-Creation, Word of Mouth, Social Web Design - and more.

Meanwhile, wre have been working to solve two client problems. Each semester we take on real client engagements to apply what we are studying. Within the next two weeks the class will deliver their individual and group engagement plans for:

PBS.org - through PBS Engage, PBS has really upped their use of social media throughout the organization and are in the midst of transforming a TV network into a media (agnostic) company. Our team looked at additional ways we can acquire and engage a new, younger audience. (and check out pbs.org's new website design - very social)

Seeds of Peace - I have been a fan ever since I saw the Seeds documentary at the Silverdocs Film Festival. They are doing some tremendous work in training the next generation of regional and world leaders in the Middle East. Our team will look at how social media can gain new, more diverse funding sources and raise awareness and relevance for their mission and activities via social media and word of mouth.

Check out what the students have been talking about at the Digital Influencers Social Network

Measuring Word of Mouth by Smiles

The Weinermobile at WOMMA: Wow! (Me, Alana Kalin - Hotdogger, and David Armano)

Why the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile is a cool word of mouth marketing "vehicle"

1. I got to ride the Weinermobile into the Rio in Las Vegas for the WOMMA Summit
2. I jumped out of it to do the Keynote address
3. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, stepped out of it to do his speech
4. I met and fell in love with the "Hotdoggers,"  the keepers of the Weinermobile and bringers of smiles

The Weinermobile makes you smile. The Hotdoggers make you feel at home. I can't think of a more delightful and talk-worthy big-brand experience at the moment. As David Armano said at the conference, 'can you count the ROI in terms of smiles?'

Step into the Weinermobile and have a pun-filled discussion with Alana Kalin or Derek O'Leary, the hotdoggers, and you will just feel it - schmaltz and cool all wrapped up in a bun.The hotdoggers have a year-long tour of duty. If I were a brand manager at a CPG I would gobble these guys up after their front-line experience with people who know and love Oscar Meyer. What a great way to start a marketing career - making fans smile.

I don't eat hot dogs. It's a meat-thing. Still, I have a warm and fuzzy feeling for Kraft for what they are doing by keeping that fleet of happiness on the road. And hats off to our friends at Weber Shandwick who helped make it possible and were just terrific!

 

WOMMA: How Brands Sell-in Social Media

Free video streaming by Ustream

At last weeks Word of Mouth Marketing Summit 2008, we had a great session on how different brands sell-in word of mouth and social media programs within their organizations. We had three great speakers:

• Linda Saindon from Kraft
• Kevin Dando from PBS
• David Armano from Critical Mass

Each shared their 5 key insights or learnings from their various experiences. Linda is a driving force behind the recently launched Kraft First Taste which is a community of brand enthusiasts interested in trying product and sharing about it.

Kevin works across mutliple program strands via his involvement in the PBS Engage team. This group serves as a social media skunkworks for pbs.org and has driven a ton of experimentation.

David Armano works for multiple brands and has a way with visualizations. I wanted him there not just because he does work on real social media-based programs for major clients but also because of the infographics he puts out. These are all meant to help explain and communicate social media concepts. they ultimately help sell-in (see one below).

You can watch the video of the session above. My intro is too long  - sorry about that. Note to self: shorter & less pacing back and forth....

Here are the points each built on:

Selling-in social media:

Kevin Dando - PBS

• Give producers an experience with blogger outreach and they will get hooked
  • Example: PBS’ Guest Blog (Remotely Connected). There were all sorts of fears about all aspects of social media including reaching out to bloggers and having them post about something that interested them. Once Kevin ran a program where they got some postings and the producers saw that the sky didn't fall, they became hooked.
• Be manic about discovery -- unbelievably important, and sometimes overlooked
• Search Engine Optimization – Metrics: Facebook talks to YouTube, which talks with…..
  • A great (and free) starter tool -- http://www.xinureturns.com/ (to measure popularity, page rank, etc.)
• Seek counsel in unexpected places.
  • PBS employee briefings turned into rich sources of information.

David Armano - Critical Mass

• Have A Strategy
• Start Small
• Don’t Just Tell, Show
• Prototype, Then Test In Real Time
• Define Measurement (ROI meets Return On Insight)

Linda Saindon - Kraft

• Consider co-creation
  Enroll consumers and organizational stakeholders when creating your program.  These groups will tell you what they’re most interested in and what’s important from a marketing and measurement perspective.
• Accountability counts
  Measurement is key--it will help demonstrate the impact and value of your program.  Start developing your own set of benchmarks.  Execute, measure, report, repeat!
• Keep it simple
  Test and learn on a small scale with a focused program to find out what works for you.  Be nimble and fine tune as you go.
• Make it customized
  Develop your WOM program with a specific consumer segment and marketing objective in mind.  Be disciplined versus executing WOM for WOM sake.  Some questions to ask are:
  Who is my targeted consumer group and why?
  How is my consumer willing to engage with my product or service?
  What is the basis for conversation?
• Educate the organization
  It’s important to educate your organization about results as well as how your program fits into the broader context of  WOM marketing and Web 2.0 landscape.

WOMMA: Approaching WOMM Through Customer Service

Pete Blackshaw, CMO at Nielsen BuzzMetrics, author of his new book - "Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000: Running a Business in Today's Consumer-Driven World"  -  gave a great keynote on Day 2 of the WOMMA Summit 2008

The more brands can understand our drivers for creating content - why I blog, why Pete does Cucina.com, why the women at Blogher - the better they will do in thsi space.

Pete asks: Why do people talk a about brands?

Brand experience. It's not about the branded entertainment (e.g. viral videos) that many brands create.
The referral spectrum has grown and taken off. there are so many more places we can share comments and media - blogs, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, ePinions et al

Credibility is everything. Here is Pete's framework

• Trust
• Authenticity
• Transparency
• Affirmation
• Listening
• Responsiveness

Great quotes:

• If you type in a name or brand into Google either you are affirmed or not
• Listening is the highest form of respect
• Online and offline WOM is a moot distinction as an online experience quickly bleeds offline and visa versa

Frank Eliason the voice of Comcast Cares - the Comcast Twitter feed - shared his stories about the mess he walked into with the complaints about the service. They made some big changes and realized what they had to do:

Give people more otions.
He showed 6 ways they now solicit contact from email to phone to live chat to "Email Rick."

Create a strategic approach.

Comcast looked across platforms where they could makes changes and be

• Comcast Central (comcast.com)
• Comcast Customer Connect  (all social media including Twitter)
• Forum & Communities (e.g. help forums)
• Corporate Blog
• Blogging on other sites

My favorite takeaways from Frank's experience.

• Create a rapid response culture
• Learn from everyone in your organization

WOMMA: Credible Reach in WOM Programs

I attended an interesting session at yesterday's WOMMA Measurement and Research Summit and wanted to post before I got too deep into today's sessions.

Lauren Levy from Matchstick presented their approach to the ROI of online and offline WOMM programs.   

She references some of Keller Fay's research that finds that, in general, offline WOM has more credibility than online which actually makes sense when you just think about the people you interact with offline and how you are likely conneted to them in some tangible way (co=workers, friends, friends of friends, family, etc...). Brad and Ed will be presentinmg their own sesison after lunch which should be full of good information.

POINTS
Offline + Online WOM makes the ROI 5x greater. That is due to the greater reach potential of online WOM.

How do they define the influencer? They look at 6 criteria and then run potential influencers through the matrix:

• Attitude - are positive about the product
• Knowledge - have above average knowledge in a category
• Spending
• Behavior
• Status
• Connectdness

FINDINGS

Surprised to see that the average number of individuals spoken to about a product launch was very similar online and offline. there was a product trial experience (a mp3 player and a handheld game device) involved so there was something tangible for the influencer to share with friends. I would have expected more conversations online.

Based upon self-reporting surveys this is how the Reach stacked up:

online people reached - 53,509
offline people reached -1,125

Sales
online activated sales: 5433
Offline activated sales: 480

They then use Keller Fay's research to temper their figures for "credibility"

CREDIBLE REACH

Credible reach is therefore 9x greater online than offline. The ROI is 5-7 times greater online versus offline.

WOMMA: True Mobile Word of Mouth

Okay so Armano - who is on my panel on Friday - spilled the beans that the Weiner Mobile was landing at WOMMA. He actually got them to pick him up at the airport! Hysterical:

Live TV : Ustream