Grounded In Reality

One of our Digital Media interns, Taylor, shared this great HorsePigCow post on how companies can use Twitter to share information and have conversations with customers. We’ve all been experimenting with Twitter for a while now, but only in the past six months have we really seen it take off — suggesting some cool and useful applications for our clients. Lionel Menchaca and other Dell employees twitter Dell news, Direct2Dell posts, industry events and often just what they’re up to (Dell is a GCI client). M.D. Anderson just started twittering cancer news, and it’s a really good way to stay up to date on new studies (M.D. Anderson is a GCI client). This post shares good examples from Zappos and JetBlue as well.

This post also shares some really practical advice — like making sure to balance promotional tweets, conversational tweets, personal tweets and contests, as well as outbound and inbound tweets (i.e., it’s important to follow and listen, too). There’s a great list of Stuff to Tweet About and How to Tweet Without Losing Your Soul (i.e., save time). On that topic, we’re big fans of Tweet Scan, which lets you search for keywords in Twitter. Very helpful for monitoring what people are saying about your brand, your competitors and hot issues you care about.

Thanks, Tara. Great post.

TechCrunch writes a great post about how social media (particularly Twitter and FriendFeed) is becoming too much to handle… so much so that Robert Scoble is even cutting back on his number of Twitter subscriptions. The TechCrunch post concludes:

“So where is the startup that is going to be my information filter? I am aware of a few companies working on this problem, but I have yet to see one that has solved it in a compelling way. Can someone please do this for me? Please? I need help. We all do.”

In a response to this post, Maple Leaf 2.0 seems to differ. Their stance is that TechCrunch just isn’t using the tools right. Another differing opinion comes from Alexander Van Elsa’s blog. (I like his stance best.) He posts that the truly cluttered sensation from ‘too many updates’ only affects the Tech elite. Most users are able to join the conversation when they like, then pop out and smell the roses of the real world.

My personal take on this?

Twitter has been the most recent addition to my social media mix. I had a hard time using the service at first, but after adding the Twitter Facebook application, having Twitter updates sent through my Google Talk (or GChat) account, and being more selective with the users I follow, I find I use it more.

As far as update overload goes, I think I had a taste of that with Twitter. When I first signed on I only followed my friends and co-workers (the few who have joined the service). I then decided to follow a few high profile bloggers on Twitter (who shall remain nameless) because I liked their blog and figured I’d want to see what they twittered about. This is where the trouble came. My Twitter page was always so busy that I found I couldn’t keep track of conversations and quickly lost interest. I think this is what Elsa was talking about in his post: the ‘tech elite’ I was following was too active for my lifestyle.

Just this week I decided enough was enough and I stopped following them. I find I get much more joy from the tool by keeping my feed to a smaller number of users who post at a rate I can handle. Only time will tell if I truly become an adopter of Twitter, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

Summary: If you are worried about information overload the answer is simple, edit-edit-edit. Keep your lists/feeds/subscriptions/follows down to manageable level.

Earlier this week, several colleagues and I discussed the elements that make web widgets successful. Some of the basic factors mentioned were:

• Utility: first and foremost, does it perform a valuable function for the user?
• Enchantment: does it keep people engaged and coming back for more?
• Community: does it facilitate conversation?
• Usability: does it have an intuitive and user-friendly interface?
• Multi-platform: is it compatible across personal pages, social networks, blogs, and mobile devices?
• Share-ability: does it allow people to spread the word?

What else makes a widget successful? Self-expression seems to be at the core of most. Some of the most popular widgets, such as Where I’ve Been, Slide, and iLike, are all designed around personalized storytelling. Call them what you want: vanity widgets, ego badges, blog-bling. The fact is that people crave tools that help them project their personal storylines. For instance, the Project Playlist widget is something I customized with my favorite music and have synched to my Facebook profile. It’s high in utility because it lets me advertise my taste in tunes. For me, the appeal isn’t the functionality. It’s what it says about me.

When developing branded widgets, marketers should consider how to harness peoples’ desire for expression and individuality. Think about their promotional needs first before you think about your own.

Some of the best moments of the Ad Age Digital Marketing Conference were the “Digital Shorts” – 15 minute case studies presented by creative execs from top interactive shops.  My favorite was a demo of Sharkrunners - an online game created for the Discovery Channel’s annual “Shark Week” series.

The gist of the game is that players take on the role of marine biologists conducting shark research. Participants select a virtual boat and crew and begin charting their course in search of great whites.  Here’s where it gets interesting: the game is virtual, but the sharks are real.  The shark movements in the game are controlled by real-world white sharks with GPS units attached to their fins.

This is a fascinating illustration of how alternate reality games can incorporate real-world situations and locations.  The game is also multiplayer, so participants compete with rival boats for research dollars and prestige. Players can even receive email and SMS alerts during the day when their boat is within range of an encounter. Kevin Slavin, Co-Founder of Area/Code (agency behind the project) talked about the success of this game and how it raised the bar for branded storylines.  On the surface, searching for sharks online doesn’t sound very compelling, but adding in the real-world element changes the entire dynamic. According to Slavin, the game has had a tremendous impact in engaging users and increasing participation and involvement in Discovery’s Shark Week. Props to the Area/Code team for a job well done.

I just returned from day 1 of Ad Age’s Digital Marketing Conference. The morning kicked-off with 2 great panels on the topic of branded entertainment and content creation. The majority of the conversation focused on how brands are increasingly building their own content platforms or aligning with media properties to develop branded experiences.

Key points about content included:

• Ownership: Ogilvy Entertainment’s Doug Scott made the point that “brands should own content rather than rent it.” His reasoning is that the Web gives brands a platform to create long-term engagement with consumers vs. the quick burst model of display ads and 30-second spots. Once display ads are gone, they are gone…whereas branded content lives online forever. I agree with his POV, but would add that marketers must be willing to experiment and fail. Brands turning into media properties overnight is no easy task (a la Bud.tv).

• Quality: Nothing new here, but the point was hammered home: creating exceptional content must remain the top priority. Relying on distribution and promotion will only make a campaign go so far. Frank Cooper, VP of Marketing for Pepsi, commented that “there’s a lot of roadkill out there” when it comes to online video (both professional and user-generated). He talked about the importance of finding the right producers, writers and actors who can create compelling, relevant content that’s built for web consumption and sharing.

  As my colleague Rachelle Spero always says, “comedy can’t be cooked up in a corporate conference room. If you want to be funny, hire a comedian.” Daman Wayans, founder of WayOut TV (“Living Color 2.0” as he calls it) echoed this POV during a panel titled “Talking Talent.” Wayans said the vast majority of UGC is actually LGC – or “loser-generated content.” His message to brands: work with the pros who know how to source, produce or filter content that’s going to resonate and be passed along in an exponential fashion.

• User Experience: several speakers stressed that the internet can’t just be another medium for repurposing TV content bits. The web enables community and dialogue, therefore storylines should involve consumers and be as participatory as possible.

I’m looking forward to Day 2, which has an awesome line up of speakers including NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, David Armano of Critical Mass, and Tom Nicholson, founder of interactive agency Icon Nicolson.

In what could be seen as ‘user generated search results,’ Yahoo is adding a service to its search capabilities called Buzz. Users will be given the option to vote on articles; promoting news they like or demoting news they dislike, that will directly affect what appears on the coveted page 1 of search. An excerpt from an article yesterday on NYTimes.com:

“Yahoo is combining users’ votes with information it gathers from its Internet search service, so that when search traffic spikes for an item or topic, it will get more ‘buzz.’ Yahoo editors, not computer programs, will decide whether an item will be placed on the portal’s front page, which receives more than 90 million visitors in the United States each month.”

BusinessWeek.com also weighed in with a story this morning clarfiying more specifics on how users will interact with Buzz:

“More than 100 major news sites have agreed to place Yahoo “Buzz Up” buttons next to their articles and other content. The partners include Gannett’s (GCI) USA Today, News Corp.’s (NWS) Wall Street Journal, and Time Warner’s (TWX) Entertainment Weekly. A click on the button is tallied as a user endorsement and sent to Yahoo’s Buzz page. Those with the highest scores are considered for placement on Yahoo’s front page. But Yahoo is retaining some editorial control: An internal team will have final say over the stories featured on the main home page. Yahoo says this is to guard against articles deemed lewd, violent, or capable of exposing the company to legal liability…”

Can a service like this really work? What are the implications for businesses that (as a result of Buzz) appear at the top of search results? A demonstration by Yahoo proved to have a surprisingly weighty outcome. An excerpt from the aforementioned NYTimes.com article states:

“In a test of the service this year, Yahoo linked from its front page to content from Esquire magazine for just three hours. In that brief period, traffic to the Esquire.com site, which already allows users of Digg and Reddit to vote on its stories, doubled for the month.”

So the real question is: Will online customer relations now be a company’s SEO strategy?

Services like this one just further implicate that companies must take an interest in what is being said about their brand online. The example above shows a positive spike for Esquire, but what if there were an article about a brand or service that wasn’t so popular? Could developments like these keep your client forever buried in search results?

Late last week, Paul Walker spoke to the New York office about crowdsourcing and the general open source mentality that is further perpetuating itself in marketing communications, interpersonal communication and technology development. I got a chance earlier in the same week to witness a unique model of the “open source philosophy” in action.

On February 12, I attended a Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit in New York City hosted by Pat Coyle, Executive Director of Business for the Indianapolis Colts. The concept of a sports marketing summit itself is not unique. How it came together, though, is distinctly “2.0.” Nearly 60 communications and technology professionals met in Manhattan, many of them for the first time. Most had come to know Pat through his blog at PatCoyle.net which discusses issues in sports marketing now that “fans are in charge.” Pat also created his own companion social network at Sportsmarketing20.com using a platform from Ning.

Over the course of a half day, there were panel discussions on measurement, engagement, communication and socializing that included representatives from a host of technology, sports and marketing entities from Rick Wolf (Business Development, RotoWorld/NBC) to Takkle.com CEO David Birnbaum to Hooman Radfar, founder of widget giant Clearspring Technologies. Conference attendees included ad agencies, companies developing social networking platforms and technologies, email marketers, as well as representatives from individual teams (New York Jets, Washington Redskins) and leagues (NBA, NFL).

Overall, it was a great learning experience and more (albeit unnecessary) evidence that the environment for marketers has changed. Many discussions centered on how to engage consumers online, how to measure engagement, how corporate sponsors can integrate content and monetize their online efforts and ways we’re interacting with certain technologies. A solid summary is offered by event attendee Brian Litvack from wRECK Sports here.

Below are a few other interesting examples of engagement referenced during the course of the day. I’ve got a complete list of attendees and would be happy to further discuss with anyone interested.

Dunder Mifflin Infinity: virtual home for fans of NBC’s “The Office”

Takkle.com: bringing the challenge concept to life with high school athletes

NBA.com Suns: an NBA franchise offers fans a peek inside the locker room

MyColts.net: Online community for Indianapolis Colts fans

——
Steve Bonsignore
GCI Sports

Over the last year, there’s been an explosion of corporate activity within social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut. Companies such as Sun Microsystems, Ernst & Young, Citigroup, and Ford Motor Company are leveraging social sites for recruitment, employee collaboration, customer relations, and localized promotions.

Many companies are also experimenting with social networking for internal communications. IBM’s “Fringe” network lets its employees connect and share information on a global level. Oracle’s internal social project called “Connect” has been a huge success since its launch last summer. Security and control are the main reasons companies opt for their own private networks. The idea of having proprietary information hosted on Facebook or another third-party community is still a risky proposition for many organizations.

But how can corporations – especially those with limited technical development capabilities – launch an internal social network with the power and simplicity of Facebook? Enter “WorkBook” – a secure, server-based software that combines all the capabilities of Facebook with all the controls of a corporate environment. Workbook let’s employees upload files, post comments, and create discussion groups with no danger of the information leaking outside the organization or access being granted to unauthorized personnel.

While it sounds slightly anti-Web 2.0 to build a locked-down environment, the fact is that security is a very real issue. Workbook just launched in December, so it will be interesting to see its evolution in 2008. My guess is that many organizations will consider moving to this type of service vs. depending on third-party sites for internal collaboration.

This has been an interesting year for blogging. Going from guerilla to grounded and back… Early in 2007, I heard form some colleagues that their client was ready to cut all ties with Gizmodo after they posted a video poking fun at a speaker during a press conference… come on guys, he is a human being, he wasn’t the best speaker (at the time) and you made him look like a robot? Seriously, have a heart… The good news is they actually pulled the video and only weeks later, hired an onslaught of magazine and newspaper freelancers hungry for work as the print press starts to dry up.

One of the hires most notable to me was former Time Magazine tech reporter Wilson Rothman. From this publicist’s humble perspective, Rothman covers great tech stories (with real news value), he honors embargoes, he is fair and honest and has integrity as a journalist. Huge sigh of relief and Gizmodo returns to good graces with most technology manufacturers. In fact, only a few months later, they were offered an exclusive on the Pioneer KURO HDTV announcement, easily one of the biggest consumer electronics launches of 2007 (Yes, Pioneer is my client BUT, in my defense, the KURO won ALMOST as many tech awards in 2007 as the iPhone).

The blogging community has long been at odds with “credible journalists” and we at GCI have been supportive of the blogging world, counseling our clients to give influential bloggers (FYI, they are just reporters with faster publishing) the same pre-briefings we would offer a few select reporters at New York Times, WSJ, BusinessWeek or Financial Times around a big announcement.

CES 2008 was no exception… influential bloggers had unprecedented access, they brought live blogging to a new art form and they played the mother of all pranks… and that was just Gizmodo.

This publicists humble opinion on the prank of all pranks? I am mixed on this one. On one hand, I want to say, “grow up guys” and stop turning off all of the television around CES with the remote that you blasted in a review three or four years ago. On the other, “no harm, no foul.” It is funny, clever and you wouldn’t have one of the most influential blogs in the world if you didn’t turn a few heads now and then. Still, Gizmodo may just be the “bad kid” in class? All I know is that Engadget has yet to pull a prank like this and they are still hanging on to #1…

Bottom line, I can’t help feeling sick to my stomach for the people behind the scenes at Motorola who worked tirelessly to bring something newsworthy to CES, to put on a good show and get credit for the CNET People’s Voice Award winner, the Moto Rokr E8. I also disagree with Brian Lam’s recent article chastising tech reporters taking freebies and becoming the pawns of major corporations. I believe journalists (and bloggers alike) today are NOT the pawns of corporate America. In fact, for the first time in 50 years, journalism has significantly changed (thanks to blogging and community forums) and it is creating an open dialogue with corporate America that never existed before. Bravo blogga mania – if you must, go on and turn off as many TVs as you like, just don’t be surprised if you find yourself nursing a puncture wound courtesy of the business end of a publicists’ high heel…

I had the opportunity to attend Nielsen Buzzmetrics’ Consumer-Generated Media Summit today in NYC. Pete Blackshaw kicked things off with a great discussion about how much the digital media landscape has evolved over the past year. Key points:

• Word of Mouth remains the most trusted source of influence for consumers who are making purchasing decisions.
• Search continues to have a huge impact on corporate reputation. Influential communities like Wikipedia are “credibility brokers” for companies.
• Consumer-generated video and audio is exploding, largely due to simple editing, publishing, and storage services. Nielsen refers to this as consumer-generated multimedia, or “CGM2.”
• Consumers are increasingly dictating how branded content lives (or dies) online. Nielsen calls this “Consumer Fortified Media.” Fancy term aside, it means that online marketing initiatives aren’t completed until consumers inject their POV via comments and other methods. In other words, consumers “finish the story” by evaluating and amplifying content that marketers produce (e.g. embracing, DIGGing, spoofing, protesting). This reinforces the fact that marketers no longer have complete control of their messages. The Web has created a flat playing field.
• The “wave of consumer emulation” has arrived. More than ever, brands are mirroring how consumers communicate and act. Look no further than the Presidential candidates who are using Web 2.0 to the max: Add the Fred08 widget to your page! Follow John Edwards on Twitter! Get text messages from Hillary! The takeaway: Brands are benefiting by communicating and acting just like consumers. The warning: Consumers spot imitation and exploitation instantly. Authentic messaging remains critical.

The Summit continued with a series of excellent breakout sessions covering healthcare buzz, media & entertainment, advertising & engagement, and defensive branding. There were great insights from attendees, although we’re prohibited from blogging the deets (Nielsen request).

More at Peter Kim’s blog.

——————-
By: Andrew Foote
GCI Group - NY