Two important reports were released today with enlightening perspectives on social networking and online communities. Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research released their Best and Worst of Social Networking, 2008, and Deloitte release the 2008 Tribalization of Business Survey, where the WSJ reports on the study’s findings of why most online communities fail.

The Forrester report has some of the more interesting results, with a great report card of notable case studies:

Forrester applied its Social Network Marketing Review methodology to programs run by 16 firms in four industries: automotive, media, technology, and consumer products. Only the BMW Series 1 received a passing grade, and half of the firms scored a zero or lower. But even with these dismal overall results, we found examples of specific best practices: The Dell/Microsoft (Red) program provided a rich media theme that was easily sharable, Sony’s BMG page for Alicia Keys was personable and interactive, and Kraft’s DiGiorno Pizza delivered a unique interactive experience with its members. To improve social network marketing, brands must develop community-centered content and activities, measure success based on new criteria, and be prepared to participate.

Continue reading "Reporting on the Best and Worst of Online Communities"

Google just built a social media platform—and it’s not called Orkut.

By inserting a small snippet of code, Google’s new social media initiative, Friend Connect, will allow any web site to, "get social features up and running immediately without programming—picking and choosing from built-in functionality like user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting, and reviews, as well as third-party applications built by the OpenSocial developer community."

The idea is to allow everyone, regardless of money or bandwidth, to integrate social interaction on their web site. I have a huge crush on Google.

In the words of Google’s director of engineering, David Galizer’s:

Google Friend Connect is about helping the ‘long tail’ of sites become more social. Many sites aren’t explicitly social and don’t necessarily want to be social networks, but they still benefit from letting their visitors interact with each other. That used to be hard. Fortunately, there’s an emerging wave of social standards—OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, and the data access APIs published by Facebook, Google, MySpace, and others. Google Friend Connect builds on these standards to let people easily connect with their friends, wherever they are on the web, making ‘any app, any site, any friends’ a reality.

Continue reading "Google to Unveil Friend Connect Tonight"

Folks, it’s all about making people’s lives better. Facebook continues to be a solid social media tool because it can actually improve your life (or, destroy it through addiciton ... either way) by effectively connecting you with your community.

Their people just published a white paper on viral marketing designed to teach businesses how to leverage customers through Facebook, and they’ve also added another feature that further enhances Facebook users to communicate and connect with their friends. They call it, c-h-a-t. You may have heard of it.

The whitepaper was actually a pretty good read--I learned a few things myself. This was a good move for them as it does two things: 1) It establishes their authority in viral marketing, and 2) Targets the growing Facebook business demographic. Facebook continues to distancing itself from its "Facebook is for kids" criticism as more and more people recognize the name. It is becoming so widspread that you are no longer considered a nerd or young-punk if you’re a Facebook user; instead, the question has become, "You’re not on Facebook?" I mean, my Dad is on Facebook (honestly...).

Also, the chat feature is pretty solid. While there are pros and cons to it, brands now have a new channel for making themselves available to customers. I know it’s already being done by some companies; but brands should be excited about another opportunity to listen to what their customers are saying.

Continue reading "Facebook Making Another Big Push"

UPDATE PT. 2Thanks to Joel, you can now view the commercial I was mentioning at his blog here. Thanks Joel!

UPDATE: Thanks to Muriel’s comment, here is the link to the DirectTV commercial series I was referring to. Unfortunately it doesn’t have the exact spot, but it does have some others that are in the same vein and equally as funny. Hopefully they’ll be posting the “Blog it Out” spot soon.

Direct TV has a new TV commercial series out featuring John Micahel Higgins and a chunk of the Christopher Guest Crew (Waiting for Guffman, Best In Show etc.). I bring that up because not only did the most recent commercial I saw make me laugh out loud; it was incredibly poignant.

The group is sitting around a drab executive style oval table, and they all look bored to tears. They are playing the part of the unnamed cable company executives. Higgins begins by stating that cable TV is losing it’s steam and something must be done. Rather than changing their policies, he says to the crew “We’re going viral. We’re gonna get online and start blogging it out.” I wish I could find that commercial on YouTube--if you find it, please let me know.

Anyhow, that is just a perfect picture of a typical view of digital marketing and social media. Someone, somewhere, heard of social media and decided they needed to be leveraging the new shiny toy. It was clearly not in Higgin’s original business plan to utilize digital marketing. Digital marketing is not a quick fix or a limited one-off; but rather a long-term invested approach of discovering where your customers are, and finding relevant ways to join their conversation on their terms

A recent study by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Association of National Advertisers suggests that fewer than 1 in 4 of the participants in Marketing & Media Ecosystem 2010 consider their organizations digitally savvy. Furthermore, AdAge reports that,

While every marketing executive recognizes the pervasive pull of the internet, most allocate only 5% to 10% of their ad budgets to digital media.

The article goes on to say,

Leading marketers such as Nike, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble are indeed recognizing that digital and interactive are no longer niche capabilities; they are a requisite skill set for all marketers.

Currently, the way in which legacy marketing treats digital marketing is akin to buying a cell phone for the sole purpose of replacing your land line: You never take the phone with you. You leave it at home, you plug it into your answering machine, and you bolt it to your wall. You now have your shiny new toy and you’ve now become ‘relevant.’ Great concept, but missing the point.

The issue for Higgin’s crew in the Direct TV commercial is that is that not only was it too little too late; but the culture supporting the “blogging it out” is not conducive to blogging.

Continue reading "“Blog It Out” - The Confusion of Digital Marketing"

Lately, I’ve been exerting mental energy over what it takes to ensure a marketing campaign, no matter the medium, is sustainable. The word “sustainability” has come to mean something different to everyone it seems...it has been hijacked by the evil buzzworders.

We need a sustainable definition of sustainable.

This morning while reading Brains On Fire’s latest post my brain literally lit on fire when both sustainability and hockey were addressed.

A few days ago, Geno from Brains On Fire summed up sustainability as being real

“when the community...can continue without having to stimulate conversation and the overall movement with continued funding to stimulate conversation.”

You should go read that post.

The idea here is something we’ve been blogging about as of late. It’s the idea of relational marketing. Conversations are taking place, it’s just a question of where and how to participate. A truly sustainable marketing initiative occurs when the creators are no longer required to catalyze conversation--be it through funding or other means. A campaign is sustainable when conversations spark other conversations, which spark additional conversations, and before you know it the “campaign” has become a living, breathing brand.

So why hockey?

Continue reading "Hockey is Sustainable"