Digital Influence Mapping Project

Special Event: WOMMA SUMMIT 2009 - Wall-to-Wall Brand Cases

The best, most practical social media summit for brands will happen on November 16-18 in Las Vegas at the Paris Hotel. It's the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's Annual SUMMIT 2009. This year, we have packed the agenda with real world case studies from brands applying social media and word of mouth marketing to their marcom and business needs. Join Ford, Pepsi, CDW, General Mills, Weight Watchers,iTunes, SAP and more.

• Ford's Ray Day and Scott Monty pair up to talk about driving social media transformation through the enterprise
• FTC Chief of Staff Chuck Harwood will talk about the FTC's role in social media marketing and the imminent FTC Guidelines
• Comcastcares, Twelpforce and others convene for a customer service smackdown on the mainstage

If you are creating and executing social media and word of mouth marketing programs for your brand or organization (or client), come to the WOMMA Summit to share best practices and the latest innovations in the use of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogging and offline word of mouth.

• The new WOMMY Awards will highlight the best of the best including best measurement models in social media and WOM.
• The Brands Council will offer special brands-only meetings
• And networking events will give you intimate conversations with your peers and colleagues from other companies to share experience

Join us now. While space is limited and no special price offers will be introduced, if you register and reference the code "fanofogilvy" you will recieve $100 off your fee.

Ogilvy will see you there.

"Must-attend" PR & Social Media Event in Atlanta

Dan Greenfield of Bernaise Source Media is throwing a great event this Friday that brings together PR pros deeply involved in social media.  Come to the  8 am - 12 noon “unconference” on Friday, August 21st, in Atlanta - PR Camp Atlanta. 

This is a practical, roll-up-your-sleeves event. Our own Irfan Kamal will be co-leading a session on measurement.  Here’s the full list of who’s helping guide the sessions:

- Irfan Kamal, Vice President, Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence

- James Andrews, Managing Partner, Everywhere
- Melanie Babcock, SVP, Digital Strategy & Services, Manning Selvage & Lee
- Debbie Curtis-Magley, Public Relations Manager, UPS
- Bert Dumars, VP, E-Business & Interactive Marketing, Newell Rubbermaid
- Peter Fasano, Principal/Lead Catalyst, mass+logic
- Carol Flammer, Managing Partner, mRELEVANCE, LLC
- Christopher Jones, Digital Strategist, Ketchum PR
- Katie Mingo, Senior Marketing Associate, Delta Airlines
- Marilynn Mobley, SVP, Strategic Counsel, Edelman PR
- Shirley Powell, SVP, Corporate Communications, Turner Broadcasting System
- Jenny Schmitt, President and Director of Client Strategy, CloudSpark

Register here.

Bloggers Remain Focused in New Orleans

 

I am winding up my visit to New Orleans. While I haven't been here since Katrina, I visited often throughout my life. I remain an outsider which is fine. I find N.O. a welcoming place yet one that has a definite barrier between the experience visitors have and those who call it home.

Curious as I was, I resisted the bus tour of the Lower 9th Ward (hard hit by Katrina). The thought of gawking from an airconditioned bus at broken neighborhoods just didn't sit right. I know that raising awareness for the continued struggle to bring back the city (saw Brad Pitt on Bill Maher last night talking about their efforts) is generally a good thing.

I remember "watching" the blog from a tech guy who stayed behind during the actual storm and aftermath. Today, that would have been Twitter, no doubt. Well this saturday, the bloggers are coming together to have a 1 day conference - Rising Tide IV - to talk about the remaining challenges ahead. While rallying bloggers is the excuse for the event, it will likely draw everyone who remains engaged with the recovery (or have we moved to 'transformation?' Many of Brad Pitt's comments regarding the optmized power consumption of the new housing - energy bills from $300 per month to $30 - suggests a positive transformation of urban life). Harry Shearer will kickoff the sessions.

Follow the conference via their blog and the Twitter hashtag #RT4. Find out how you can remain involved even long after media attention has faded.

Marcelo Tas on Brazilian "Gambiarra"

Apparently, Brazilians are adept at hacking technology to make something out of very little. I am not talking about software hacks per se. I am talking about not settling for what's in front of them and assembling solutions from the bits and pieces of available elements. Think Frankenstein meets the iPod.

It's such a common thing they have a name for it: Gambiarra or as Renata Saraiva from Ogilvy points out, "Fazer uma gambiarra."

Here's how media maven Marcelo Tas describes it during my interview with him:

photo from: http://jabacominformatica.com

Marcelo Tas: Brazil's #1 Social Media Enthusiast

 

He's a TV celebrity, internet pioneer, father of 3, overall good-guy and has more than 75K followers on Twitter. Marcelo Tas has been engaged with the Internet and television for well over a decade (I love meeting guys who have been around as long as I have). I had a great dinner with him in Sao Paulo last week.

He shared a bit about himself, his social media life and his insights in Brazilian social media - all while standing outside our restaurant on the street.

 He has a hugely popular live TV show in Brazil. He will go live from April through December which makes me tired just thinking about it. Online he has his blog and his very popular Twitter feed. He is a brand and a very appealing one from where I sit. Essentially I see Marcelo as a creative entrepeneur. That means he has a natural curiosity that drives him to constantly try things and invent things, mostly media. He told me of his online shows via UOL where he challenged experts to unpack complex topics like university economist who had to explain the global economic meltdown to a taxi driver. So smart.

He regularly speaks to large brands about his experience and insights into digital culture. Here's an excerpt from my interview with him outside our restaurant in Sao Paulo. One thing is clear, Marcelo comes alive in a new way when you turn on the camera. I love his energy.

Marcelo Tas' Blog

Marcelo's Twitter Feed

His show

How Are Brands Handling Social Media in Brazil

People like Michel Lent, Carla Meneghini, and Renata Saraiva at Ogilvy have developed a great integrated approach to social media marketing and digital influence programs. They live and work in Sao Paulo which I can only describe from my naive pov as the New York City of Brazil, if not of the overall region. It is a kick-ass city with more culture, food and commerce than any I have visited in a while. Traffic too, but that's another story.

We met with many brands last week. They are all taking social media very seriously. As in many markets there is a range of brand adoption behaviors including:

• Brands who want to put listening programs in place to understand what consumers are saying about them in blogs, Orkut and Twitter

• Brands fascinated with Twitter and ready to accept that platform as a microcosm of cgm chatter

• Brands looking to a number of partners - small and big - for guidance and not always getting the best recomendations (In my opinion)
• Brands looking to their traditional agencies and to new boutiques (there are a few new social media boutiques using simple cgm listening capabilities to build business)
• Brands embracing the idea of new influencers and inviting them to interact with the brand
• An emphisis on using social media without clear expectations around realistic measurement and impact
• Brand marketers looking at social media as a channel (pitfall)
• Communications execs trying to make the case at the C-suite level for the relevance and impact of social media marketing and communications

It's all good, essentially. Brazil is such a big and fast-growing market. The key to all of this is how fast the market is growing. With 197 million people and 68 million on the internet (35%), there is a critical mass of people and influencers that can drive marketing and communications.

There are always limits on infrastructure - how fast can we grow 35% to 50% by sheer "pipe" alone? How can we go from 6.8 million broadband users to 10 million? Still, just keep an eye on adoption curves - how fast Brazilians grabbed onto Orkut and Twitter - these tell a story of a market that will explode in a blink of an eye. And the marketing and communications professionals at the brands seem to know it. 

Some facts about Brazil (from Globotrends wiki):

• BR - 196,342,587 population - Country Area: 8,544,418 sq km
• 67,510,400 users as of Dec/08, 34.4% penetration, per ITU.
• 6,788,100 Broadband subs as of Nov.26/08, per ITU, 3.5% p.r.

Idea Bar #13: Family Travel Match-up Service

I've been married for 18 years and missed the opportunity to use Internet dating services. From the sidelines, I am a big believer in the value of services that can match people's interests and affinities potentially leading towards meaningful relationships.

We need another service that essentially does the same thing for traveling families.Each year, we plan one or two vacations. Some are local-ish, driving vacations. Some involve flying. Historically, we have tried to go out of the country once and then maybe to the beach or a lake. Clearly, this year, we will be staying more local.

My kids are 11 and 14. We like to do certain things - as Popeye said, "I ams what I ams." or "we ares what we ares." When we take a week to go to the Outer Banks, let's say, how can we connect with a couple of families that we have enough affinity for who will be on the OBX at the same time? Or if we visit my dad on the Redneck Riviera, how do we find that family that wouldn't laugh at our Takoma Park values from the front seat of their Esplanade? We don't want to share a house so much as share a few experiences and most importantly, connect our kids with new friends and pals.

I realize that many families do group vacations - sharing houses and the full travel experience. We are quite a bit more independent than that. Our travel opportunities are precious and the excercise of matching affinities, budget, and vacation time with a neighbor or local friend is too daunting. Plus, I love meeting new people, and I want my kids to meet new people to.

Family Travel Matching
It's simple really. Let's take the best of affinity matching - we like science fiction movies, swimming both at the beach and in a pool, weird local activities (next time in LA, I want to visit the Museum of Death - probably not with 11, though.)

• And combine it with travel destination and timing: e.g. we will be in Assateague in the 3rd week of August

• Our children's ages and interests

• Some budget & taste information: we don't want to eat at McD's, abhor expensive brunches but kinda dig things like the Kill Devil Grill...

• and some ideas of what we would consider fun...

We should be able ot find folks both traveling and native to our destination who also want to meet new people for some low-commitment diversions. The New York Times Travel section featured a service today that starts to get there: Tripsay.com.

Tripsay.com
the new service seems more about aggregating traveler reviews and then allowing you to join groups - but it's a very high-level affinity like "passion on cultural nightlife" or "hiking." It's not family oriented and I am guessing matches more young people.

"What's your passion regarding travel? Join TripSay and create a group with others sharing that passion! TripSay groups are made up of people who share common interests or activities.

Build your traveler network using groups. You can share tips and places with your network and as the result you'll get their recommendations for your next trip!"

FamilyPosse.com

Time to start a Family travel matching Service. We could call it, FamilyPosse.com.

(thanks to Creativepro.com for the station wagon pic)
 

Davos 09 - Where's the Digital Experience?

I realized that the World Economic Forum Davos conference was happening this past week when I read Michael Arrington's "spit post" last week. All week, I had been meaning to ap into the social media side of the event yet just didn't have time. Like last year, I was able to tap into their "Social Media" page and choose between their YouTube pages, their Twitter feed, Netvibes, Flickr, Qik, Mogulus, MySpace, Facebook page, their own video player page and more.

Need to Add "Guides"

With all of this availble content, I need a guide. I want to find all the content related to digital innovation. Could be a series of human guides that offer their 'playlist' of content. Could be a series of segmented tags that the crowd attending and creating content would use. Where's the Davos Delicious page? (I would have guessed "davos2009" as a good, all-purpose tag but there are only 12 tags there). Clearly there is a lot of traditoinal media coverage from FT.com and Time.com. I particularly like the page and coverage from the Huffington post. They serve as guides for the readers who have a close affinity for their editorial focus.  I am particularly interested in sessions and discussions about the impact and trends of "digital."

I am confident that I could piece this together and create a "guide" to digital-related issues/sessions/content. Since the WEC has done such a great job with getting digital content up there, the next step could be creating these effective "guides" - tools, people, data - that makes teh experience more naigable and relevant to more people.

Good Digital Session: The Next Digital Experience

Here is a decent session hosted by Michael Arrington with some of the usual "young founders" talking at first about mobile and then wandering around the innovations brought about by YouTube, Facebook, and, finally issues like privacy. Participants: Hamid Akhavan, Eric K. Clemons, Chad Hurley, Craig Mundie, Shantanu Narayen, Mark Zuckerberg. The session runs like a standard panel - they don't dip into questions from online, Twitter, et al. Good stuff in there and worth having on in the background.

tidbits:

Mark Zuckerberg - "People are becoming more and more comfortable sharing more..."

Eric K. Clemons (Wharton) - "My good friend, Jason Lanier, who pioneered virtual reality says that is so "last year." What we want is augmented reality..." where we get more information layered in on our lives.

Eric K. Clemons - "...Us, old guys, we  are not hiding from data we are hiding from push...which is a big problem for (marketers)..."

Must-Attend Events #2: WOMMA Summit & Research Symposium

aka The Official Event of the Word of Mouth Marketing Industry

November 12-14 in LasVegas at the Rio

This year's event will bring together some of the biggest brands practicing Word of Mouth marketing today including Dell, Kraft, Hershey's, HP, and more. I am personally involved so I am biased but the reason that I am so involved is that I believe so strongly in the discipline and in a broad-based group like WOMMA to push it forward.

One of the most important outputs of the November SUMMIT will be the latest on measurement and ROI. Nothing could be more important as the economy tightens and marketers must demand more efficient (i.e. "provable") programs. If you have an approach or need a measurement model to support you programs - come to learn and share!

Even our event must be essential to make it worth all of our time, and this year's program is just that...essential:

"Reaching the Word of Mouth Tipping Point

Word of Mouth Marketing has grown up. Major brands and organizations integrate WOMM into global marketing and communications programs every day. Have we reached the tipping point yet where WOMM programs flood the landscape? What will it take to get there?

Hear from the most important brands using WOMM today – how they measure, deploy best-practice programs, and how they sell-in programs.

Each year, the WOMM industry convenes to take a comprehensive look at the changes that have taken place in the fast-changing, ever-beta, word of mouth marketing world, and to look forward at what’s on the horizon, including tactical trends, best practices, game-changing ideas, and more.

Whether you live and breathe word of mouth or have seen firsthand the impact of WOMM and want to learn more, WOMMA’s annual Word of Mouth Marketing Summit is the place to be.

On the dockets for Summit 2008:

• Keynotes and case studies from the top brands in the WOMM world:
  • Hear from Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos about their explosive business
  • Cases from HP, Yahoo, Pepsi, Hershey, Cadbury Schweppes, Intercontinental Hotels and more
• All of the WOMM industry leaders in one place
• Networking opportunities with people who live in the WOMM trenches
• WOMM as a recession marketing tactic
• Aligning your online and offline efforts
• Introducing WOM in your integrated campaign

Details:

November 12-14 in LasVegas at the Rio

500 Marketers from major brands, agencies and WOM specialists

WeMedia 08 Sound Bites: Real Voices & Social Networks

Young Bloggers & Social Media at last week's WeMedia Buenos Aires event

Four "youths" were on stage at WeMedia 08 which has been dominated by media, business and marketing leaders (adults). It's refreshing to hear from those who are not caught up in the professions. Each is deeply engaged with social media. Some are even celebrities. When Cumbio entered the auditorium, the Twitter stream exclaimed "Cumbio is in the house!"

They are here to share their digital lives. Cumbio sounds like a regular teen.I love that she leads real-world meet-ups at the mall. Milton runs a popular blog. Pablo brought his own PowerPoint presentatuion of teens and social media.

Myths and Reality

• Each has a perfectly normal sounding life with lots of digital sprinkled in throughout the day. They are not on the computer all day. That is clearly a myth for these people. They weave it in with tremendous facility. Cumbio can post a half dozen images on her photo log in less than an hour (and recieves 100,000 visits (a day?).  I am certian that I am online far more hours than any of them (and have no more to show for it, I think)
• Pablo: "TV is only used for movies, I like...TV s not my favorite medium"
• At least two of them don't understand the appeal of Facebook. The audience of adults cheer that one on. 
• Cumbio's pretty sober about the difference between core friends - 5-10 - and the extended network of aquaintances that the Facebook software chooses to call "friends."
• Cumbio champions a new kind of media literacy - how to best use Fotolog and retain your privacy. very smart.