Digital Influence Mapping Project

WOMMA Looks at the FDA Social Media Hearings

After the first day of FDA Hearings, WOMMA, Ogilvy and LiveWorld held a tweetup at Ogilvy with WOMMA's legal counsel, Tony DiResta. Tony guided WOMMA through our work that led to the recent FTC Guidelines on Endorsements and Testimonials. He's also author of the WOMMA Blog, DiResta the Law, where he shares on the legal side of social media and word of mouth marketing.

He offers his own perspective on the first day and where he thinks this all may lead. After spending most of the two days there myself and [presenting to the FDA on the second day], I would say that all of his first day observations are relevant for both days.

Part 1

 

Part 2

Part 3

 

We will have a live wrap-up of the FDA hearings at the WOMMA Summit this week. We will also have a live session with the FTC in attendance as our next step in developing precise and practical best practices for that agencies recent Guidelines to marketers.
  

WOMMA Presents at the FDA Social Media Hearings

I attended most of the the two day FDA Hearings on use of the Internet and Social Media and was pleasantly surprised. The agenda was jam-packed. It was like speed-dating or some other rapid-fire challenge. While I was skeptical of the format and whether there would be substantive suggestions and ideas, both worked out well.

Speaking on behalf of WOMMA, Melissa Davies (member company Nielsen) and I delivered two different "testimonies."

WOMMA FDA Presentation November 2009

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I addressed questions 1 and 3 from the FDA docket. My goal was to share our recent experience with the new FDA Guidelines, suggest a level of brand responsibility around sites where brands establish a "material connection" and offer a suggestion for a new vocabulary to bring whatever guidelines come from the hearings more up-to-date and aligned with the industry.

WOMMA FDA Presentation on Adverse Events November 2009

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Melissa shared her POV on the real instance of Adverse Events based upon some novel research her company had done.

One thing did surprise me. Most of the presentations not-focused on adverse events were focused on digital marketing basics - search marketing, banners, et al. Its true, pharma has been held back in the basics. The FDA needs to deliver some 'pretty good' guidelines on this Web 1.0 stuff quickly and then turn its attention to the true social media practices.

There were quite a few presentations that corroborated our point that the FDA could serve the public best by delivering some basic "guardrails" and then encourage and allow marketers to define the actual best practices around implementation.

We need to create a climate condusive to innovation from the market. That's what led to Web 2.0, social media and the Internet, itself.

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.

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. 

WOMMA: Geoff Donaker of Yelp Tells All at WOMM U.

Last week's WOMMA event for brand marketers - WOMM U. - featured the best of social media used strategically (that is 'word of mouth marketing'). One session featured Yelp founder, Geoff Donaker, sharing about the rocket ride that Yelp has been on lately.

There are 20 million folks who come to Yelp every month to hear what others are saying about brands, products and services. When I was in SF last month, I couldn't go by a store that didn't have the Yelp sticker in the window. And the woman at Giant Robot summed it up, "Yeah, this is a Yelp town..."

Geoff shared about his own personal experiences sourcing services - using reviews and submitting them. He shared about a carpet cleaning small business guy who shared that he had taken the logos off his truck as he didn't want someone he may have cut off in traffic to go on Yelp and write a negative review.

Big Question
Will reviews drive massive responsible behavior (not driving like an a**hole vs. hiding your logo). The carpet cleaner went on to change his behavior and deliver stellar service principally to drive great reviews. I am guessing that that approach is driving business via word of mouth -  beyond just the Yelp reviews.

They have just begun work with major national brands. Geoff shared an experience with a vehemently negative review of a nichtclub at a W Hotel. He offered a few lessons. I wanted to call out a couple here as the negativ potential of reviews is often a barrier to brands getting more involved.

Lesson 5: The temptation to spam is strong
A revealing video interview captured how a businessman "faked" email accounts to get what he felt were legitimate reviews back up. Yelp has a spam filter that tries to catch wrongful posts. The owner tried to trump the system to get filtered reviews back up there. The result was that he was coached by Yelp on how to earn legitimate great reviews vs. gaming the system.

Lesson6: The manufactured reputation tends to backfire
A business that incented reviews from customers got slammed by "vigilante justice" who called the reviews out as shilling. Did the business offer coupons  for reviews or 'good reviews'? This is a thorny issue and one at the heart of WOMMA's Ethics Guidelines. The purest form of word of mouth (reviews in this case) are those that are self-motivated. Yet brands incent influencers and customers to talk all of the time. Clearly incenting for a postive review is wrong-headed. But is incenting to write whatever review the person deems appropriate - positive, negative, neutral, nothing -  is that ok?

Geoff shared about new features that allow brands to respond to bad reviews. they got a lot of heat for not doing that originally. Reviewers can hijack the system to pursue a vendetta. More likely, negative reviews are opportunities for brands to listen, take action to fix something and then let their customers know that hey heard them and took corrective action. The review system at Yelp now allows for more of that overall positive behavior. 

Reviews and search are often everlooked as cornerstones of a social strategy. And of course for many brands reviews are connected with search. What's your Yelp strategy? What's your review strategy?

Why Brands Love Twitter (and don't understand Facebook)

The love affair with Twitter just keeps growing and growing. The fundamental benefits of Twitter for brands has not changed much since we published our workshop, Twitter for Business. We have seen a lot more brands experimenting and, of course, celebrities jumping on board. Last week, when @Oprah jumped in, I coudl feel the collective groan as the servers coped with the onslaught. And, of course, there was Ashton Kushter's 'million-follower-goal.' (see his Tweedeck demo here)

Ogilvy PR 360 DI Twitter Webinar

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Four Winning  Qualities of Twitter

There are four qualities to Twitter that make it appealing to brands to adopt in their social media mix. these same three qualities continue to postion Twitter against other platforms including Facebook:

It's simple - while there are many ways you can apply Twitter to your business from customer service to listening intelligence to extending offers to drive conversion, it is all built upon a dead simple model of followers, following and 140 character messages. You deliver something of value and you accrue followers. Followers retweet and act on messages.

It's open - Anyone can read my tweets. You only have to register or login to post your own or interact. Not only that but it is very easy to pump your feed anywhere you want. Many brands are now including their Twitter feed(s) as part of their Social Web presence in their corporate or brand "home" pages (there's a concept - "homepage" - that has been blown up over the past coupel of years). Also, the API of twitter is fairly available and many are creating some interesting visualizations and aggregations of data.

It's got a good ear to the ground - many brands have discovered the value of putting their brand in Tweetscan or just seraching Twitter, itself to find a lot of surprising mentions. Some clients are now using Twitter as a kind of proxy listening post, using it as a barometer of likely overall issues. All of our clients have added Twitter to their cgm listening posts. I knwo one client who did their social media ROI plan simply based on Twitter mentions alone. 

It's free - One could argue that you don't have to pay to use Facebook either yet clearly the value of facebook is only realized with some crafty and stategic use of advertising around brand pages or applications to make your needle stand out in the haystack. (Conspiracy theory #1: Does Facebook resist improving inside-Facebook search to increase teh importance of paid advertising to discover anything in there?). Twitter won't always be free but I suspect that whatever business model they adopt will make it easy for brands to pay 'X' to use such a simple system.

So What About Facebook?

It's complex - from Brand pages to Facebook Connect to applications to social ads, there's a lot you can do with Facebook. This complexity is a hurdle to some brands while it also promises more power for those who do get involved in really using Facebook.You can see that power - hopefully simplified - in our recentFacebook Bootcamp preso here.

Facebook Bootcamp for PR

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It's not so open - exporting data from Facebook is pretty much not possible. They want to control that. Imagine crafting a cool visualization of the biggest brand communities by using the Facebook API. I just don't think it could happen.

It's hard to detect what people are saying inside Facebook. At 200m users, everyone wants to extend their Listening Post into Facebook (yes, in a a way that is not eavesdroppy). What do we get? Facebook Lexicon which is like BlogPulse was years ago. I hope that someone inside Facebook is making listening tools a priority. One of the benefits of the type of critical mass and reach they have is the ability to knwo what's going on in there.

It ain't really free - the most impactful cases of brands using Facebook involes paid ad campaigns within Facebook. That's how they earn their revenue but it's also how you boost awareness fo whatever it is that you are doing in there. Still, to create eficient ad programs, you need to plan in a more complex way - what is your engagement and conversion model; how will you target? what is the balance of paid vs. "earned" WOM inside Facebook. Early advertisers inside teh social networks may have approached it as a simple channel and been disappointed with the results. Truth is - advertising helps social media scale - IF IT IS DONE IN SERVICE OF THE COMMUNITY AND CONVERSATION.

I am guessing that the most sophisticated marketers will continue to leverage Twitter while at the same time dive deeper into their use of Facebook with all it's complexity.

3 Compelling Twitter Visualizations

A lot of folks are mashing up Twitter to come up with interesting sub services and some neat visualizations.As more people join and more people are. And as more people spend more time on the service, it's becoming more and more useful for marketers to look for insight in what is said on just Twitter, itself.  You might expect marketers to discount the bias or inside-baseball quality of Twitter but not so. I know one marketer who made a very persuasive argument about revenue missed from just negative mentions on Twitter alone. New visualizations are springing up every day and offering intersting views of what people are talking about. Here's three:

TwitterThoughts is a cool interactive chart that not only plots topics over a period of time but will actually show you an animated timeline of keyword topics.

TweetVolume lets you input about 5 keywords to see overall volume of Tweet mentions. It's not clear over what period of time the data spans but it still is interesting in that simple Blogpulse kinda way.  

TwitterFountain mashes up tweets and Flickr images and is billed as a neat way to add dimension to event coverage. The next time you go to a conference - WOMM U 2009, let's say - participants upload and tag images and tweets are overlaid via hashtags.

Nice Twitter Data from SXSW

I am not at SXSW. I feel a bit like the kid who didn't go to Spring Break (I actually never went to the Spring Break in the drunk-swarmed Florida town - something about crowds). Realizing that there are a lot of great social  media-related things going on there including some interesting brands getting involved, I wanted to find different ways to tap into or, at least, observe the experience beyond just watching the #sxsw Twitter hashtag.

Pepsico did something smart (heads up: we do some work for brands at Pepsico but not this). They took some Twitter streams and fed them into a visual display - pepsicozeitgeist.com - against several categories like Swarm (location), Popular, Stream (just a stream of tweets), and Party Watch. The most fun and useful this Sunday morning is the Swarm funtion which overlays tweets on and Austin street map. You can quickly get a sense of who is heading over to Moonshine Grill (closed for breakfast apparently) or who is doing the Mellow ride from mellow Johnny's.

Brands Being Helpful

While other brands will spend their energy creating Flash-based games around their products, Pepsico tries to be of-service to those on the ground in Austin (Party Watch has no data right now but presuming it works when people are pushing parties, what a great tool. I hope there is an iPhone version). The next version could be a bit more interactive - I cannot click on the data to go that stream. Still - making use of the social Web to be helpful and build on a highly relevant platform - Twitter - for this venue is terrific.

A while back we created the guide to Twitter for Business. Using the data stream as they have done here needs to be a new chapter in that resource.

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)
 

Helping Me Get Green Simply & Socially

A lot of brands are jumping on the bandwagon by embracing issues surrounding green, sustainability, and good-fo-the-environment. Agencies (including Ogilvy with the Greenery ) are setting up prcatices to better communicate 'greenness'. Some brands are sincere and have changed business practices to provide a more "green" approach and impact. Others just want the credit.

One thing many could explore is to help all of us citizens improve our personal impact on the environment. That means giving us tools or information that we can use. I doubt anyone believes this is anyone's job but rather will succed when we all do our part. Together we can win. And that is good news for most brands who want to build stronger bonds with their customers. By being of-use to us (customers) in terms of helping us to reduce our carbon footprint, for example, brands help us achieve something we find valuable. That's a brand-bonding opportunity.

Climate Culture Makes it Easy

Climate Culture is a Web2.0 social network-enhanced tool to help me reduce my family carbon footprint. It was developed by a group of Ivy League-plus grads and it's board of advisores is dominated by Yalie profs (oh, and Ed Begley - who apparently dropped the "Jr." from hsi name a while back).

On the surface, Climate Culture's main attraction appears to be a virtual representation of your world as an island. That's not the best thing it has going for it. In fact, that "virtual space" visual was one reason I was sure that I would hate it. 3D interfaces that mimic the space we breathe in are not good interfaces for most utility computing. When we were developing some of the earliest interactive TV shopping mall interfaces in 1991, we tried these 3D replicas of malls that were just horrible user experiences. Imagine if Amazon required you to walk down a hallway, open a door, "talk" to an avatar....you get the picture.

But Climate Culture's virtual island makes sense and, more importantly, doesn't suck. That's mostly because it's not the main interface. They use very simple and smart Web 2.0 menus. As you calculate your initial carbon footprint, you get to walk through a terrific list of tactics to reduce it. This list is magic. They are helping me think of ways to take actions - from big to small - and then giving me an idea of the impact. I earn points for answering questions and can reduce my footprint by acknowledging those things I already do or are willing to commit to doing.  (Not sure I can realistically 'reduce my Internet use' but that's only good for 51 lbs of CO2 a year whereas using a solar-powered lawnmower is good for 63).

What else could they do:

• Make the list more portable. I want to access in Facebook and on my Blackberry.

• Give me a way to challenge someone within the community or, more importantly, someone from the social Web to meet goals (e.g. "I bet I can earn 100o points by Friday...")
• Let me advocate for Climate Culture. Give me badges or apps to embed in my blogs et al.
• Create a sponsorable application for brands. Allow Brand X to show their support for Climate Culture and the mission of helping us all reduce our footprint while highlighting what they or their product contributes.