presents
Blogs and social media
Session 1: Intro to Corporate
Blogging
Table of Contents
• Introduction
• What is a blog? What makes it a blog?
Why should we care?
• Benefits and challenges
• Case studies
• The primary social networking sites
• Corporate blogging etiquette
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Dell sucks
• Thousands of frustrated consumers
eventually commented on and linked to my
blog, saying, "I agree."
• I blogged an open letter…join the
conversation your customers are having
without you.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Dell joined the conversation
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© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Other Dell social efforts
• 1980s: listservs, for example.
• April 2006: Online Community Outreach team
• July 2006: Direct2Dell blog and burning
batteries
• Summer 2006: Expanded blog outreach to
include any conversations about Dell.
• Sept. 2006: StudioDell
• Early 2007: IdeaStorm – tell Dell what to do
• “Tech Brad” on Yahoo Answers – so popular
being used in ads
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Happy ending
• “In the age of customers empowered by
blogs and social media, Dell has leapt
from worst to first." – Jeff Jarvis, Business
Week
• First step: Dell dispatched technicians to
reach out to complaining bloggers and
solve their problems, earning pleasantly
surprised buzz in return.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
"These conversations are going to
occur whether you like it or not,
O.K.? Well, do you want to be part of
that or not? My argument is you
absolutely do. You can learn from
that. You can improve your reaction
time. And you can be a better
company by listening and being
involved in that conversation.”
– Michael Dell
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
• Michael Dell: I think a strong company is
one that constantly learns. One of the best
ways to constantly learn is to really listen
to customers. The rapidly changing tech
landscape makes it efficient and easier
than ever before to listen, learn and
connect with customers. The emergence
of social media is a tremendous
opportunity to bring the "outside" in to your
company.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Measurable results
• Dell saw a 27 point decrease in negative
blog posts, from 49 percent at the peak
of Dell Hell to the current 22 percent.
• Cost would have been hundreds of
millions for similar ad campaign.
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• Michael Dell: "A company this size is not
going to be about a couple of people
coming up with ideas. It's going to be
about millions of people and harnessing
the power of those ideas."
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Tips from Bob Pearson, Dell
1. Focus group with 10 people, or listen to
10,000?
2. Customers = partners
3. Communities > individuals
4. You should be easy to see and talk to
5. Be truthful, transparent, diligent
6. Customers = people, not lines of business
7. Don’t try to fit old thinking to new environment.
New set of metrics.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
What is
social
media?
Social media is an umbrella term
that defines the various activities
that integrate technology, social
interaction, and the construction of
words, pictures, videos and audio.
This interaction, and the manner in
which information is presented,
depends on the varied
perspectives and "building" of
shared meaning, as people share
their stories, and understandings.
- Wikipedia
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
What is
social
media?
Social media is ... a way of using
the Internet to instantly
collaborate, share information, or
have a conversation ideas or
causes we care about. It’s a world
where anyone can be a publisher,
a reporter, an artist, a filmmaker, a
photographer or pundit …. Even
an activist or citizen
philanthropist!“
- Beth Kanter in presentation
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What is
social
media?
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Best way to find out is to
compare to what we had before:
•Newspapers
•Magazines
•Television
•Radio
•Books
•CDs
•DVDs
•A box of photos
•Physical, paper mail and
catalogs
•Yellow Pages
1. Can be changed
2. Can participate
What is
social
media?
3. Can sense popularity – comments,
bookmarks, Techmeme
4. Archives
5. Mixed media – photos, videos
6. No publishing committees
7. Infinite – no quantity limits like
words or time
8. Syndicated - openness
9. Mashable – widgets from 3rd
parties
- Robert Scoble
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What is
social
media?
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© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Sites considered social media:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Blogs
Message boards
Forums
Social networks
Video sharing
Microblogging
Slideshows
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
• Picture sharing
(Photobucket)
• Podcasts
• Vidcasts
• Wikis
• Groups
• Virtual words or
communities (Second
life)
Social Media Activity
100
90
86
80
70
79
70
65
59
60
53
47
50
51
55
40
40
30
20
10
0
See w hat m y
friends are up to
Posted/updated
m y profile
Searched for
som eone that I
used to know
Listened to m usic
Wrote on
som eone’s
profile page (e.g.
w rote on a w all,
posted a
testim onial)
Base: US online adult social networking site users, Source: North American Technographics Media And Marketing
Online Survey, Q3 2007
What is
Web 2.0?
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Web 1.0
Web 2.0
DoubleClick
Google AdSense
Ofoto
Flickr
Akamai
BitTorrent
mp3.com
Napster
Britannica Online
Wikipedia
personal websites
blogging
evite
upcoming.org
domain name speculation
SEO
page views
cost per click
screen scraping
web services
Publishing
participation
CMS
Wikis
directories (taxonomy)
tagging ("folksonomy")
Stickiness
syndication
What is a blog?
Portmanteau of
“weblog”
Displayed in
reverse
chronological
order
Written in
chronological order
A verb
From Wikipedia entry for “Blog”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
RSS
• Really Simple
Syndication
• RSS in plain English
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RSS Benefits
• Portable
• Mashable
• No email, guaranteed
delivery
• Secure channel, can’t
be spammed
• Easily share
• More visibility
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• Good for timesensitive info (special
deals, etc., events)
• Users can control flow
of info -> trust
• Builds up inbound
links
Trackbacks
Tells other blogs
you linked to
them, and then
an excerpt of your
post appears with
a link back to
your blog in the
comments
section of their
post that you
linked to
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Pingbacks
You get a
notification that
other bloggers
linked to your
blog, and an
excerpt of their
post appears on
your blog with a
link to their blog
(opposite of
trackbacks)
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Example of pingback
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Comments
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Pings
• Blogs set up to ping send an automatic
message to tens or hundreds of blog
directories, telling them you just published
something new.
• This not only spreads your blog further, but
Google is known to follow these blog
directories, and it helps Google pick up on
new blogs quickly.
• Pingomatic.com is an example of a
pinging service.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Tags
• Good for search
engines; gives them
more info on what the
post is about
• Good for Technorati
blog directory
• Good for finer
categorization of
posts
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Tagging
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“It’s a new media world that really returns
us to old Main Street ethics. A shopkeeper
within the town builds great relationships
with his/her community members. There’s
an intrinsic understanding that they need
the community as much if not more so than
the community needs the shop. And so the
shopkeeper works hard for the community,
and treats it well.“
- The Participation Ethos
Isn’t it a waste of time?
Other wastes of time:
• “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military
value.” –Marechal Ferdinand Foch
• “The wireless music box has no imaginable
commercial value. Who would pay for a
message sent to nobody in particular?” –David
Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings
for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
• “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” --H.M.
“Harry” Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Social computing is not a fad. Nor is
it something that will pass you or
your company by. Gradually, social
computing will impact almost every
role, at every kind of company, in all
parts of the world.
- Forrester Research, Social Computing – How
Networks Erode Institutional Power, And What To
Do About It
Why should I care about
social media?
The blogosphere – you’re already there
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The blogosphere is doubling in size
every 6 months
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120,000,000
106,000,000
100,000,000
80,000,000
60,000,000
40,000,000
20,000,000
20,000,000
13,000
0
Nov. 2002
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Nov. 2005
Sept. 2007
Growth of the blogosphere
• It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years
ago
• On average, a new weblog is created every
second of every day
• 19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3
months after their blogs are created
• Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog
posts each day, about 50,000 per hour
• 34% of large corporations currently have a blog
solution, 70% plan one by the end of the year
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Who’s on the web?
•
•
•
•
•
70% of US adults use the Internet
91% of Internet users use email
91% use search engines
39% read blogs
5 of the top 10 most-visited sites are social
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
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Word of Mouth - Trust
What do you prefer?
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Word of Mouth
• It is claimed that a satisfied customer tells
an average of three people about a
product or service he/she likes, and eleven
people about a product or service which
he/she did not like.[3] Viral marketing is
based on this natural human behaviour.
(Wikipedia)
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They don’t buy it anymore
• "76% of consumers don't believe that
companies tell the truth in advertising."
Yankelovich
• "85% of Chinese stop watching TV during
commercial breaks. More than half change
the channel, while the rest do housework,
eat, chat or use the bathroom." (McKinsey
& Co.)
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They don’t buy it anymore
• "In 1965, 80% of 18-49 year olds in the US
could be reached with three 60-second TV
spots. In 2002, it required 177 117 primetime commercials to do the same." Jim
Stengel, Global Marketing Officer, P&G
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
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© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Blogs and online user generated media content are
reliable sources in North America. Asia & Europe are a
close second and third.
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© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
WOM Spending
• …more than $1 billion is spent a year on
word-of-mouth campaigns targeting
Influentials, an amount growing at 36% a
year, faster than any other part of
marketing and advertising. That’s on top of
billions more in PR and ads leveled at the
cognoscenti.
The Age and Influence of Social Media
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Show me the money
ROI for Social Networking
• Community users remain customers 50% longer than
non-community users. (AT&T, 2002)
• 43% of support forums visits are in lieu of opening up a
support case. (Cisco, 2004).
• Community users spend 54% more than non-community
users (EBay, 2006)
• In customer support, live interaction costs 87% more per
transaction on average than forums and other web selfservice options. (ASP, 2002)
• Cost per interaction in customers support averages $12
via the contact center versus $0.25 via self-service
options. (Forrester, 2006)
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
ROI
• Community users visit nine times more often
than non-community users (McKinsey, 2000).
• Community users have four times as many page
views as non-community users (McKinsey,
2000).
• 56% percent of online community members log
in once a day or more (Annenberg, 2007)
• Customers report good experiences in forums
more than twice as often as they do via calls or
mail. (Jupiter, 2006)
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Measurable results: ROI
•
•
•
•
•
Media attention
Speaking requests
Customer loyalty
Inbound links to the blog
Search engine ranking for the corporate
site
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Measurable results: ROI
•
•
•
•
•
Corporate website traffic
Leads/sales initiated
Volume of blog traffic
Technorati and other credible rankings
Search engine ranking for the blog
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Measurable results: ROI
• Increased company visibility within the
industry
• Increased media coverage
• Improved customer loyalty
• Increased sales leads/revenue/new
customers
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Today’s leading brand
Source: Millward Brown’s Brandz
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Nature of advantage is shifting
Google
$0 on ads
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The big boys: Coke,
P&G
Decades and billions
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“To blog or not to blog?
The answer, simply
enough, is to blog. No
better opportunity exists
to engage in an open
dialog and exchange of
ideas with customers and
potential customers.”
Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman, General
Motors
"If you blog, you exist."
- Shai Agassi, former
Board Member, SAP
Benefits
•
•
•
•
Low cost and fast to set up
Transparent and authentic
Information is always up-to-date
Blogging is innovative = you are
innovative
• Inexpensive tool for external
communication
• Quickly respond to critics
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Benefits: Reach
• Get the right information to the right
people at the right time.
• Broad reach via RSS and email
subscriptions
• Opening a new marketing channel for
products and services
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Benefits: Financial
• Test out ideas on the blog before development
• Forrester research: savings from customer
insights
• Low-cost, targeted for recessions: Brands which
took advantage of social media marketing in
2007 avoided the slump in sales which affected
some sectors and profited from their efforts, a
new report has claimed.
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Benefits: Search Engines
• Increased site traffic
• Increased rankings
• Search engines like:
– Sites that publish fresh content
– Sites with inbound links
– Keywords
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Benefits: Thought Leadership
• Position you and your company as thought
leaders in competitive markets
• Establish a true, credible voice in the
marketplace
• Gain knowledge, stay on top of your field
• Tim Ferris launched The 4 Hour
Workweek to New York Times bestseller
list through blogging
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Benefits: Branding
• Strengthen and promote your brand
• Give your company a human face
• Forrester research: increased brand
visibility
• Forrester research: reduced impact from
negative user-generated content, and
increased sales efficiency
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Benefits: PR
•
•
•
•
Free and controlled news desk
Damage control!
Rapid response tool
Create buzz - give small hints abt. new
products, generate press interest
• Announce conferences/events
• Product development and launch
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Benefits: Customer Relations
• Customer queries answered leading to
reduced customer service or technical
support calls
• Enhance customer loyalty
• Build sense of community
• Turn customers into your sales force
• Reach an active, passionate consumer
base
• Reach people on their own terms
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Benefits: Lead Generation
• Better communication with prospects
• Leverage existing customer base to spread your
message
• Increased enquiries generated; subscriptions to
newsletter/rss = ongoing
• A living white paper
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Benefits: Lead Generation
• Customer support
• Education-based marketing
• More friends = Word of Mouth - 80% of online
users trust the opinion of a friend or
acquaintance more than any other possible
web source
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Benefits - miscellaneous
• Put a human face on the company
• Comment = customer buy-in
• Leverage opinion leaders’ influence
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Benefits: Intelligence
• GM's Fastlane Blog’s Bob Lutz, says he
receives better consumer intelligence from
reading the comments on his blog than
those from traditional market research
channels, like surveys and focus groups.
• Quickly and easily poll your customers
• Get feedback
• Build better products from 2-way
conversation
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Benefits: Collaboration
•
•
•
•
Company news and updates
Project notes
Centralized archives
Instant documentation
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Industry Benefits: B2B
• What going on in my market?
• What are my competitors doing?
• What activities do my buyers engage in?
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Challenges
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Open criticism
Lack of control
Time consuming
Need to be consistent
Need to make changes in how you work
Your audience is not online
Need to teach staff about it.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
“I’ve never really found the time
to blog, so to speak....I always
have my BlackBerry with me.
When I’m feeling inspired I jot
something down. I’ve always
been this way.”
Bob Lutz, Vice President General
Motors
Challenges
•
•
•
•
•
•
Compliance and legal issues
Untrustworthy member data
50% of blogs abandoned within 90 days
Loss in workplace productivity
Hard to measure success
Need for openness
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Challenges
• Most blogs don’t get a lot of traffic
• No ending date
• Blogging employees don’t represent the
brand
• Cost – GMs cost $240k
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© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
The only people for
whom Social Media
is bad are ‘liars’.
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Companies who should have
cared, but didn’t
Comcast couch guy
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AOL – cancel my account!
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“Applegate”
• May 2007: “…earlier yesterday technology blog
Engadget published what it claimed was an
internal email from Apple that stated the iPhone
launch would be delayed until October and that
the Leopard operating system would be delayed
until January 2008.
Six minutes after the post, Apple's share value
had sunk to $103.42, cutting Apple's
company value by $4bn. - TechCrunch
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“Applegate”
• “Apple has received formal government
approval to sell its much-anticipated
iPhone in the US, just a day after a bogus
email, dubbed "Applegate", wiped $4bn
from the company's stock market value.“ Guardian
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Target PR Nightmare
• Rep from non-profit concerned with media
and marketing’s impact on kids writes to
Target objecting to their ad.
• Target: “unfortunately we are unable to
respond to your inquiry because Target
does not participate with non-traditional
media outlets. This practice is in place to
allow us to focus on publications that
reach our core guest.”
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
uh oh…
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=
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
PR nightmare
Target PR Nightmare
• Target was publicly slammed for having
questionable advertising practices and
elitist public relations policies.
• Story was picked up and repeated
thoughout the blogosphere
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Target PR Nightmare
• Shaping Youth is a small, grass-roots
organization - that has a blog.
• Target is #33 in the Fortune 50 - with $59
Billion in revenue - but no blog.
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When social media came to
the rescue…
vs.
• Johnson&Johnson sues Red Cross over
use of Red Cross!
• J&J takes the dialogue beyond the
standard corporate PR, and posts about
this on their blog.
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vs.
• The result? A large number of comments
and stories generally providing broad
support for J&J's point of view. While there
are negative comments, the blog achieved
what no other crisis communication's
vehicle would have delivered.
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GM leader in social media
• GM launched blog in 2005 – Fastlane
• Written by Vice Chairman
• 200 years: GM expanding social media
strategy to include GMNext
• Isn’t that a waste of time?
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GM says yes to SM
• Forrester compared the results of GM’s
Fastlane blog to those of a focus group,
and since a focus group costs about
$15,000 a month, which works out to
$180,000 each year, GM has achieved
similar results via their blog, and saved
itself $180,000 in cash per year.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
GM says yes to SM
• GM is trying to engage their customers
one car at a time.
• Transparency
• Increases chances of reaching younger
buyers
• Profit? Increase of 2.6% in sales
compared with January last year.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Growing pains: Ford
• Ford recently released their first social
media release.
• Ford’s lawyers did a very unsocial thing
and stopped some of their most exuberant
fans from printing up a fan calendar with
photos of their own Ford cars in it.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Growing pains: Ford
• “The folks at BMC (Black Mustang Club) automotive forum wanted
to put together a calendar featuring members’ cars, and print it
through CafePress. Photos were submitted, the layout was set,
and… CafePress notifies the site admin that pictures of Ford cars
cannot be printed. Not just Ford logos, not just Mustang logos, the
car -as a whole- is a Ford trademark and its image can’t be
reproduced without permission. So even though Ford has a lineup of
enthusiasts who want to show off their Ford cars, the company is
bent on alienating them. ‘Them’ being some of the most loyal
owners and future buyers that they have. Or rather, that they had,
because many have decided that they will not be doing business
with Ford again if this matter isn’t resolved.” (From BoingBoing read more there)
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
• “Ford pulled the
spark-plug right outta
their hearts.” – Todd
Defren
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/
15601547@N08/2077964472/
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Social Media Trends
Primary social networks
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Facebook
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Events
Causes
Articles/Posts
Shared Items
Pages
Photos/Videos
Mass mailing
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facebook statistics
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
40-50 million users.
Over 40% over 35
Over 42m monthly uniques
Over 78m widgets
6000 applications deployed
Average visitor stays 20 minutes
College educated
White collar
- Source: Your Facebook Strategy: Opportunities of a Ready-Made Platform
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Things you can do with fb
•
•
•
•
•
Conduct polls – 25 cents per response
Facebook insights: Track demographics
Add Flash or HTML to a Page
Track page stats
Tags in notes, videos, photos
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Companies with fb widgets
• American Airlines: Travel Bag, lets
Facebook friends share personal tips and
experiences. Goal: to know more about
travel preferences
• Coors Light - Consumers 21 and older
able to send their friends invitations to
meet for Coors Light
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Power of facebook
• UK bank HSBC reinstitutes overdraft fees
for recent college grads. 6,000 on
facebook threaten boycott
• Ernst & Young answers questions from
college students on facebook
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© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
What is twitter?
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Ways to use twitter
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Personal Branding
Get feedback
Hire people
Direct traffic
Read news
Network
Company intranet
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Notify your customers
Event updates
Find prospects
Provide live coverage
Set up meetings
Support your social
media strategy – get
votes for articles, etc.
Who’s on twitter
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Carnival Cruise lines
Intel Software
Adaptive Path
PodTech Network
Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama
Comcast
Direct2Dell
Dell Outlet
JetBlue Airways
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
twitter case study: Comcast guy
• @comcastcares
• noticed a tweet from Michael Arrington, Eliason reached out to
help, and Comcast soon dispatched a team to Arrington’s
house to fix his Internet connection. It was, Eliason says, a
turning point, but not in quite the way you’d think. Sure,
Arrington’s experience with Eliason turned into a lengthy post
on TechCrunch, but what seems to have interested Eliason
more is how his Twitter followers rallied around him when
some said that Comcast had only helped Arrington because
he was Arrington. No, his supporters said, he’d helped out
many other people too. Comcastcares was forming
relationships.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
twitter for B2B
•
•
•
•
•
Sign up and spread the word
Use it as a portable broadcasting channel
Share knowledge from events
Get feedback and opinions
Publish product/service updates with links
to site
• Publish useful info about your industry
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
StumbleUpon for business
•
•
•
•
•
Personalize your profile page.
Join communities related to your business
Add friends with similar interests
Stumble often
Label and tag your submitted pages
appropriately
• Sponsor your site – very cheap and
targeted
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Digg/de.licio.us
• Digg home page = internet windfall with 20
million uniques per month
• Track trends and see what’s hot on the
web
• Use de.licio.us as collaboration tool for
sharing important info
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
friendfeed
• Lifestream
• Put it all in one place
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
YouTube
•
•
•
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100 million videos watched every day
Brand your video
Less than 1 minute
Put URL in description
Create your own channel
Choose good screenshot
Use words like “exclusive”
Push push push! You’ve got 48 hours!
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Second Life
• More than 10 million user accounts
• 1.5 million residents log in every month
• Over $1m US spent every day (1st
millionaire)
• Can own private property
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Second life and branding
• Toyota – in-game models to promote
Scion
• Peugeuot – virtual race track coincided
with Frankfurt Motor Show
• BBC Radio 1 – stage with avatars of
presenters and bands performing, virtual
digital radio to listen
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Social media
overload
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
To social or not to social?
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Can I spare the time?
What will the lawyers say?
Will my employees waste time?
Will my brand be damaged?
Can I write?
Will I see business results?
Is it too technical for me?
I’m afraid of losing control.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
How to social
How to social
• Have a personality
• Don’t be afraid of failure
• Pick the right social media for your
audience
• Make friends
• Add value to the community
• Don’t self-promote
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
How to social (cont)
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Be accurate
Be transparent
Be patient
Increase your linkability
Make tagging and bookmarking easy
Help your content travel
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
If you give to your
community 95% of
the time, you win
the right to take,
i.e. promote
yourself. Without
giving, there is no
taking.
Giving
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Taking
How to set up guidelines
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Clarify what is off limits
Can employees social on company time?
Disclaimer?
Be careful…
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Wholefoods blog, Nov. 2007
Dear Stakeholders,
A Special Committee of our Board of Directors' is
conducting an independent internal investigation into
online financial message board postings related to
Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Markets. In light of
this, it is in the best interest of the company to
temporarily hold off on posting on my Company blog.
The ability to post comments to this blog will be disabled
during this time as well. I look forward to resuming our
conversations and plan on being in touch with you again
soon.
Best regards,
John
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
4 basic rules for social activity
Personal
Responsibility
Keep Secrets
Keep Rules
Be Nice
Setting up social guidelines
• Do not defame a colleague or discuss their
behavior
• Do not write anything defamatory
• Do (or do not) social on company time
• Do not reveal confidential info or trade
secrets.
• Do not refer to customers or partners
without their permission
• Copyright
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Setting up social ethics
• (Do not) Avoid inflammatory or
controversial topics.
• Respect your audience
• Take privacy seriously
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Why business blogs fail
1. Not getting many comments
2. Not enough subscribers
3. Didn't see any increase in traffic to their
website
4. Too hard to come up with new content
every week
5. Couldn't figure out how to promote their
products and services
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Over 50% of blogs are
abandoned within 90 days.
So let’s get it right…
First and foremost…Strategy!
Strategy questions
1. What are our goals?
2. Who is our audience? Are they using
SM?
3. What will it take to get there?
4. Activities and tactics: what will you do?
5. Outcomes and benchmarks: what
happened?
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Goals
Impacts
• Improved Services to Members
• Improved Positioning of Organization
• Greater involvement of Members in the
organization
• Growth of the organization
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Goals
Goals
•
Programs
– Organizational Capacity
– Partnerships or Alliances
– New Members
– New Gatekeepers
– New Donors/Sponsors
– More or Diversified Funding
– Organizational Visibility or Recognition
•
Positioning
– Media Coverage
– Awareness
– Salience
– Attitudes or Beliefs - Commitment
– Public Will
– Membership Growth
• Growth of non-traditional membership demographic - new audiences
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Audience
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Members
Nonmembers
Industry/Community Leaders
Investors
Business Leaders
Sponsors/Donors
Popular Culture Gatekeepers
Media
Staff/Volunteers
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Who’s on the web?
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70% of US adults
17% of global adults
91% of internet users use e-mail
91% use search engines
67% get news
66% visit a government website
39% read blogs
93% of teens are online
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Audience
Are they using SM?
Yes. Continue
with strategy planning
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
No. Answer questions
about age, gender, etc.
Does my audience use SM?
1. Age
2. Gender
3. Occupation
4. (What else?)
5. Social network
Tool: Forrester Social Technographic Ladder
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
What will it take?
Capacity:
• Funding – can be costly: GM's program
cost $240k, but it had a profitable ROI.
• Skills
• Infrastructure
• Staff
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
What will it take?
Preparation and planning
• Data
• Problem assessment
• Goal setting
• Partners
• Message
• Materials
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Activities and tactics
• Evaluation, Analysis, Research
• Relationship Building with DecisionMakers and Thought Leaders
• Board, Staff, Gatekeeper Education
• Proposal Development
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Activities and Tactics
PR
• Newsletter (electronic or print)
• Media coverage
• Briefings/Presentations
• Viral - participation within existing
communities
• Blogs
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Outcomes and Benchmarks
Benchmark first, so you can measure success.
• Desired outcomes:
– New partnerships
– New users/clients
– Embracing new demographic
– New sponsors/donors
– Increased funding/profits
– Increased visibility
– Brand strengthening
– Media coverage
– Awareness
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Forrester’s POST
• People – who are you targeting – social
technographic tool
• Objectives – what are your goals
• Strategy – how will you do this
• Technology – what tools will you use
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Types of people – Forrester
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Creators – publishers of original material
Critics – ratings, comments, forums, wiki
Collectors – tags, rss feeds, digg
Joiners – has profile on social networks
Spectators – reads, watches, listens
Inactives - nada
- The Forrester Social Technographics Ladder
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
100
90
80
70
66
60
58
50
48
39
40
30
20
43
25
18
44
26
25
12 14
10
0
Creators
Critics
Collectors
Adults
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Joiners
Youth
Spectators
Inactives
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Co-marketers
• Brand Evangelists - they LOVE you.
• Promoters - they are loyal, but not crazy,
and will promote you.
• Co-creators - These people thrive on
being part of a group that helps you make
a product better, launch a new product,
advise you on new menu items or even
helps you co-create marketing.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Objectives
• Listening – learn from customers (used to be
research)
• Speaking – create emotional attachment,
advertising (marketing)
• Energizing – Excite your fans, WOM
(sales)
• Supporting – peer-to-peer support (support)
• Embracing – Members become contributors
(development)
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Strategizing
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Build or join
Experimentation
Market intelligence
Advertising
Embrace and lead communities
Deploy campaign
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Advanced
Novice
Uses SM tools for product
aware, monitoring and
launches, crises, etc.
observing. Experimenting
Deploying apps etc.
Intermediate
Has deployed other SM
strategies. Increasing budget
and resources. Joining groups, etc.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Levels of Corporate Adoption
• "The Tower" - Purely centralized adoption of
social media tools; Central person/organization
that mandates all social media activities.
• "The Tire" - Uncoordinated adoption at the edge
of the organization; Organization that works on
the edges of the company. Not coordinated.
• "Hub & Spoke" - Best model. Central
organization with flexibility at the edges.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Roles
• Social media strategist: organizes and
supports the program
• Internal facing program manager
• Community manager
• External facing program manager
• Customer support
• PR
• Blogger Relations, etc.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
How
• Can’t spread yourself too thin, or you won’t have
any results
• Listen before speaking – needs of members first
• Members are in control
• Allow for discussions
• Be transparent – admit you’re marketing
• Become a resource – best way to start
• Integrate with other marketing initiatives
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Setting up a blog strategy
Step 1: Goals
• Why?
• Who?
• What?
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Step 2: Naming your blog
• Blog is extension of brand and marketing
goals
• Research competitors’ blogs
• Research industry keywords: Keyword
Discovery or Wordtracker
• Simple URL
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Step 3: Incorporate with site
• Give blog prominent placement in site’s
navigation and vice versa
• Share branding elements: colors, styles,
fonts
• Publish press release/newsletter
announcment
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Design
• Simple, uncluttered – don’t make them
think!
• Attractive=professional; branding
• Do not use a template, and if you do,
make sure you’ve modified it enough.
• About page!
• Examples: uses template
• Ogilvy, Hill & Knowlton, CEO and Senior
Exec blogs
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Selecting a platform
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Blogger
Typepad
Movable Type
WordPress.com
WordPress.org
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Spice it up
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Latest readers
Recent comments
Categories
Tag cloud
Recent posts
Featured video
Photo gallery
Subscribe to email/RSS
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Create blogging strategy
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Write with a human voice
Post frequently
Be transparent about who’s writing
Create a conversation
Link to useful resources
Comment on other blogs
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Blog etiquette
• Try to balance facts and opinion
• Link to reliable sources
• Be careful…
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Measure your progress
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Feedburner
Technorati
twitter
Blogpulse
Google Blog Search
Compete
Google Analytics
Alexa
Social networks
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Identifying key bloggers
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Technorati
Google blog search
Blogpulse
Techmeme
Blog directories
Other blogs
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Staying on top of things
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Google Alerts
RSS feeds
Email subscriptions
Aggregators (popurls, Techmeme, twitter,
facebook, MediaPost)
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Blog Promotion
Linking Strategies
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Identify A-listers
Use your RSS reader
Seize opportunities
Use keywords
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Search Engines
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Submit
Keywords
Adwords
Backlinks
GMOZ
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Guest blogging
• Carefully select blogs
• Bio with link to site
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Commenting
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Mini posts
Do it regularly
Be useful!
Engage with your commenters
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Blog Carnival or contest
• http://blogcarnival.com/bc/
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Press Releases
• PR Web
• Business Wire
• Social Media Press Release
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Free white paper
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Only for subscribers
Give links for reviews
Allow free distribution
Place on scribd, docstoc, slideshare
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Schedule and tasks
Basic Weekly Blog Schedule
Read RSS feeds and Google
Alerts find new blogs
Write blog posts
Managing comments &
responding
Writing comments on other
blogs
Study analytics (subscribers,
visitors, web mentions)
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
½-1 hour 3
times/wk
3-5 posts/wk
1 hour/wk
1 hour a week
2 hours/wk
Bonus blog tasks
Write pillar articles
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Interview a “celebrity”
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Guest blog on other sites
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Release press release
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Adwords campaign
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Create a video
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Offer free white paper

© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Simulation: Blog for “Accelerate”
Accelerate is a new sports drink released by Enerdrinks Ltd. Enerdrinks
is a small company with limited resources that wants to increase
brand awareness.
Accelerate is unique for the following reasons:
1.
Organic, no chemicals etc.
2.
Special squeezy bottle with velcro strap for portability
3.
Green promotion: Every purchase puts 10 cents to buy a tree
Accelerate is targeting 18-32 year olds, and while they don’t have much
money, they can afford to invest time in a blog.
Help them create a blogging strategy.
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Accelerate Blog Strategy
• Who are they
targeting?
• What are their goals
for the blog?
• What steps do they
need to take?
• Current state of
brand?
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
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Competitors?
Activities
Extra offerings
Guidelines
Layout
What are you
measuring?
Listen
Respond
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
Participate
The web is the network
© illuminea 2008. All rights reserved.
"To find something comparable, you
have to go back 500 years to the
printing press, the birth of mass
media...Technology is shifting power
away from the editors, the publishers,
the establishment, the media elite.
Now it's the people who are taking
control." Rupert Murdoch, quoted in
Wired, July 2006.
Thank you!
www.illuminea.com
mschwab@illuminea.com
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