Being Peter Kim

Some thoughts on Twitter autofollowing

Six weeks ago, I got a note from Biz Stone at Twitter, as did an unspecified number of other users who had autofollowing enabled on our accounts.  The core of his message:  "We're going to discontinue autofollow because this behavior sends the wrong message. Namely, it is unlikely that anyone can actually read tweets from thousands of accounts which makes this activity disingenuous."

Users can still do this via third party services like Socialtoo and @hallicious asks if autofollowing is good or bad and if the ends justify the means.

Spam is clearly increasing on the site as new users open accounts with hopes of getting rick quick.  Autofollowing exacerbates the issue.

I wrote a response to Biz at Twitter, asking:

- What would happen if Twitter masked the actual numbers of following/followers displayed?  (Similar to LinkedIn's 500+) 

- What if Twitter enabled segmentation on-site (e.g. Facebook friend lists, Friendfeed rooms, or WeFollow tags) or filtered-only following?

- What if Twitter offered analytics?  Would user behavior change?  E.g. Mailana shows I only message 150 people anyway, so why follow more?

- What if Twitter charged users who apply a "reach and frequency" broadcast approach, for whom autofollow and stats are quite important?  (Hello, freemium.)

Announcing the Media 2.0 Best Practices

I posted recently about broken windows in social media and asked if there was anything more we could do about them.  The prevailing sentiment in comments was that "broken windows" are a necessary evil, but the community would win in the end.

Problems aren't going to fix themselves - as social computing goes mainstream, I see the risk of bystander effect increasing as more windows get broken.  So you and I are going to need to get involved.

As a first step, how taking a first step forward with platform vendors?  The Media 2.0 Workgroup - a group I've been affiliated with for a while - has decided to work on an initiative that will focus on the ethics of participation.

Here's more from Chris Saad.  If you're interested, I encourage you to visit the Media 2.0 Best Practices page to learn more and get involved.

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Announcing the Media 2.0 Best Practices

Today I am proud to announce the Media 2.0 Best Practices.

The Highlights

• We are creating a document that the community can own and that vendors can use as a promise to their participants
• The project was started by JS-Kit and donated to the Media 2.0 Workgroup for broader participation
• The group will discuss and debate the strawman during the coming conferences (SxSW, Web 2.0 and others)
• This will be a document owned by the community for any vendor in the marketplace to adopt. It will be hosted at www.mediabestpractices.com
• Participants are: Chris Saad, Khris Loux (On Behalf of JS-Kit), Eric Blantz, Stowe Boyd, Micah Baldwin (On behalf of Lijit), Brian Solis, Ben Metcalfe, Marianne Richmond, Jeremiah Owyang, Daniela Barbosa, Peter Kim, Loïc Le Meur (also on behalf of Seesmic/Twhirl), Deborah Schultz.

The goal...

To give publishers, emerging media platforms and individual participants an evolving set of 'Best Practices' to encourage open, democratic and transparent interaction. Further, to help participants who wish to engage with those platforms to know, at a glance, which aspects of the best practices they can reasonably expect to be applied to their experience.

The history...

Over the past weeks, Eric Blantz, Khris Loux, Stowe Boyd and I (Chris Saad) have been discussing the ethics and best practices around social media and social tools, specifically with regard to the needs of a social tools vendor like JS-Kit. All of us are working with JS-Kit in some way or another. The Recent Facebook flap about their Terms of Service led us to consider addressing these issues in a larger forum. As Eric said, 'the value of the activity is proportional to the involvement of a wider group of smart people.' We immediately thought of the Media 2.0 Workgroup as a good start for that wider group. As a result, JS-Kit authorized us to donate our draft materials to the workgroup for open sourcing to the community.

We have high aspirations, but we don't know exactly what form any results of the process might take. Perhaps we will be able to define a strong consensus on a number of topics that we will craft into a document or a website. Alternatively, we might fall into camps, arguing different sides of complex issues. Perhaps we would create a series of public conversations on the most difficult and important topics, and video those, with participation of others. We don't know.

We do know that the issues around the ethics of participation in the social web are enormous importance. The web is the most valuable human artifact ever created, and it is ours: there is no higher authority to ask 'how should we act?' We have to look to ourselves to find these answers, and the sooner the better.

The plan...

This will be a document owned by the community for any vendor in the marketplace to adopt. The core group of participants will discuss and debate the issues over the coming conferences (SxSW, Web 2.0 etc) and we will keep the entire community informed via the Mailing List, Twitter and Media 2.0 Workgroup feed.

Initial Participants in the process are...

Chris Saad, Khris Loux (On Behalf of JS-Kit), Eric Blantz, Stowe Boyd, Micah Baldwin (On behalf of Lijit), Brian Solis, Ben Metcalfe, Marianne Richmond, Jeremiah Owyang, Daniela Barbosa,  Peter Kim, Loïc Le Meur (also on behalf of Seesmic/Twhirl), Deborah Schultz.

Check it out...

Visit the site and view the strawman at www.mediabestpractices.com

Broken windows in social media

You may be familiar with the broken windows theory, namely how vandalism such as broken windows and graffiti lead to disorder in communities.  Fixing these types of issues restores order to communities.  In society, usually it's institutions and authorities that make something happen.  Naturally, people who live local can step up and get involved too.  (While the correlations supporting the theory have been debated, it's tough to argue that living in a nicer environment is a bad thing.)

In social media, I'm noticing more broken windows appear daily - in a figurative sense.  That is, not like broken functionality, but instead the proliferation of unsolicited commercial content, blatant self promotion, and more savvy spammers.

419 scammers on Facebook.  Human generated comment spam.  Automated direct messages from new Twitter followers.  Emails selling social media certification.  Plagiarism and IP theft.

The "authorities" are doing what they can, e.g. Twitter suspends and Facebook disables suspicious accounts.  And you can report violations, block users, or send a DMCA takedown notice.  But the problem lies in how the windows are breaking - it's wholly intentional with minimal incremental cost and little chance of being caught.  Most of us also participate in social media complementary to a paying job - so monitoring and chasing down violations ends up as Ahab-like vigilantism.

Personally, I engage with a large network and cope by employing an active "ignore" filter.  Some people lock-down to a greater degree and only connect with very small trusted networks.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.

But regardless of how you participate, isn't there SOMETHING MORE we can do about all of these broken windows?

Social Media Predictions 2009

Community and collaboration are wonderful things.

Fourteen great minds on social media have shared thoughts on what 2009 may have in store for us.  Here's some of what they're thinking:

• "Although it is now cheaper to launch an initiative leveraging Web 2.0 technology - it requires qualified and passionate people to make them successful." - David Armano
• "You may not always start the year as a leader, but you can certainly finish it that way." - Rohit Bhargava  
• "Intimacy touches emotion; emotion powers conversation." - Pete Blackshaw
• "Doors are going to close all over the social web. Why? Because the money didn't come the way people thought it would." - Chris Brogan 
• "The tipping point has not only *not* been reached, but could still tilt *away* from Social Media." - Todd Defren
• "There's a lot of fixing that needs to be done." - Jason Falls 
• "Dwindling budgets suddenly make low-cost social media look like the pretty girl at the ball." - Ann Handley 
• "We're going to develop a set of better metrics to help guide, direct and validate 'commitment'." - Joseph Jaffe 
• "The movement is rooted in a desire to have quality, not quantity, as people cocoon in the face of the economic crisis." - Charlene Li 
• "After a pre-qualifying wrestling match..." - Ben McConnell
• "These will be cumulative events and interactions that will build brand loyalty for the companies that pay attention to them." - Scott Monty  
• "The recession will force revenue results out of social technologies." - Jeremiah Owyang
• "Companies that focus on earning love will thrive during hard times, and kick ass when good times return." - Andy Sernovitz
• "Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter." - Greg Verdino  

Everyone's thoughts have been assembled in this PDF. You can also read the document in-line below.

Your feedback is appreciated and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

BTW - can you suggest a place to publish these ideas for them to be commented and voted on?  As you think through the contributions, I'd love for everyone to have a way of seeing what resonates most with the community and also contribute their own ideas.  Kind of like a personal Digg or My Starbucks Idea.  If you know of a technology, please comment below or message me on Twitter @peterkim. Thanks!

UPDATE:  These are now posted on Slinkset, where you can vote on your favorites and submit your own.

A Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples

Over the weekend, I created a framework to port A List of Social Media Marketing Examples into a wiki.  I also invited the 166 people who've left comments on that post to become the initial collaborators in the new effort. (At least I tried to...Google Sites seems to have had a delivery problem. If you think you should have a login, try your existing email address - it may already be setup.)

Soon after inception, several people asked about turning the list into a wiki, which is a natural container for this type of information.  However, I delayed doing this immediately for many reasons.

One of the benefits of doing so manifests in the framework, which allows users to sort information by different categories.  In an early experiment, I had created an alphabetical directory by company name, with 26 pages.  Continuing with that approach would've meant replicating efforts to relist examples by channel, industry, or geography.

Let me say thanks again to everyone who's contributed to help create

A Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples

I'm looking forward to collaborating on this new community resource with you.

Social Media Marketing's New Clothes

Lewis writes, "Don't Say ROI Unless You Mean It."  Agreed.  I see a lot of bloggers wading into unfamiliar territory, starting to spew opinions on measuring return on investment (ROI).  It's easy for anyone with an understanding of business finance to see the shallowness of these analyses.  But don't be surprised - has not knowing anything about a subject ever stopped a blogger from writing about it?

There is one correct approach to calculate ROI.  The result is a financial ratio.

To get to the root of the problem, we first need to go back to school.  Marketing has historically been a right-brain discipline, reflected in academic coursework.  Left-brained marketers end up focusing on direct and/or B2B - staying far away from social media.

Fast forward to the top of the food chain.  CMOs have a shorter tenure than other executive roles.  Why?  According to Spencer Stuart, the firm that publishes the most widely cited statistics on the subject, CEO and CMO agendas are misaligned.  CEOs want to see business results - I'd say now more than ever.  Marketers can't counter with, "well, I can't give you a number, but there sure are a lot of people talking nice about us."

Social media is easy to use.  If you can type in a box and click a button, you can blog.  Click the button that looks like "play" and sure enough the video starts rolling.  There is no secret to using Twitter.  Being a social media user meant that you were an expert...five years ago.  Not today.

Do you know the story about The Emperor's New Clothes?  Let's pick it up near the end:

And so the Emperor set off under the high canopy, at the head of the great procession. It was a great success. All the people standing by and at the windows cheered and cried, "Oh, how splendid are the Emperor's new clothes. What a magnificent train! How well the clothes fit!" No one dared to admit that he couldn't see anything, for who would want it to be known that he was either stupid or unfit for his post?

We know the Emperor should've just used some common sense.  Calculating ROI from social media efforts is no different.

If ROI doesn't apply to social media marketing, then social media should not be used for marketing.

Slicing and Dicing A List of Social Media Marketing Examples

Since starting a list of social media marketing examples, I've seen some great work to frame content for specific uses:

By technology/media type

• I posted a framework on Mashable called The 22 Step Social Media Marketing Plan
• Ray Schiel has listed almost all the examples by category

By country

• Australia: former colleague Steven Noble has bookmarked many examples
• Canada: David Jones has set up a wiki
• Germany:  Benedikt Köhler has blogged a list
• Malaysia:  A table at GreyReview
• United Kingdom:  John Welsh has blogged a list

By industry

• Haven't seen any yet...

If you are maintaining or know of a segmented list, please let me know and I'll link to you here.

Copy-and-paste your social media marketing plan

This is a truncated cross-post that was published over on Mashable.

As you may know, I've been curating a list of social media marketing examples on this blog over the past couple of months.  The community could probably come up with 3,000 examples instead of 300 - but the current set already gives us a pretty good sample to think about.  Namely: it's time to master the last big thing now.

For a framework of 22 tools to consider, with notable brand examples, please visit the original post at Mashable.

Thinking Through Twitter

What's the matter here?

I've written a handful of posts about Twitter over the past year, published a syndicated research report, and have been interviewed by traditional and social media on the service.

Despite service outages that grew quite awful at some points, Twitter's site traffic grew 422% from August 2007 - August 2008, according to Mashable/Nielsen Online.  People aren't requesting that Twitter turn into a public alert system anymore, not when it can't even supply content to a web widget.  But with many more people participating, conversations can become much more diverse and interesting.

That's why I changed the way I use Twitter recently.  This year, I've fluctuated from following about 100 people to 400 to 1,000, then down to 200, eventually 90...and last month, I added everyone back...over 1,500 people.

Here's why.

I think paying 100% attention to Twitter for any length of time results in waste.  You may be interested in social media chatter, but what about travel gripes?  Baseball commentary?  Political opinions?  Watching a "raw" twitter stream - even from people who mainly focus on your primary interest - will end up as irrelevant as a typical TV ad break.

But tools help drive relevance by filtering noise.  Here are the ones that I find most helpful:

1. Twitter Search.  I'm reading as many tweets today via RSS to Google Reader as I am at Twitter.com.  How?  By searching for relevant topics and subscribing to the feeds.
2. Tweetdeck.  Useful for segmenting people - and companies - into groups, e.g. Bostonians, Austinites, Personal Friends, etc.
3. Mobile alerts.  Direct messages act like text messages and you can get alerts pushed to you whenever important people update.
4. Twinkle.  Provides proximity search for mobile and crashes less than Twitterific.
5. Twitter Karma.  Only tool I know that lets you manage relationships in bulk.

Other tools like TwitterCounter and Twitter Grader provide statistics, but aren't incredibly helpful...unlike utilities, I see these going the way of Tweeterboard.

By following more people, I'm hearing more chatter, geting answers to the most random questions, and feedback on social media topics.

I'm on Twitter as @peterkim.

234 Social Media Marketing Examples

234 examples, visualized. Created using http://wordle.net/

A month ago, I published a list of social media marketing examples.  At the time, the list started with 131 brands that were involved in social media to some extent.  (Sometimes not by their own choice.)

A month later, the list has added over 100 new brands due to the contributions of 81 community members.

Some interesting things happened along the way.  Dion Hincliffe from Social Computing Magazine requested permission to republish the list, no problem.  Almost 200 other bloggers have found the list helpful and I hope you do as well.  Unfortunately, I also stumbled across a few cases of plagiarism - two that were coincidentally blamed on "assistants" blogging whose work had not been checked.  (Really?  Maybe I need to get a blogging assistant, too.  But I'll be sure to equip that person with a copy of the MLA.)

As my way of saying thanks, here's a search engine shout-out to give credit where credit is due to everyone who has contributed to the list (either directly or through prior art):

Jeremiah Owyang, Mashable, Forrester, Mack Collier, Social Brand Index, Gavin Heaton, Philippe Deltenre, zeroinfluencer, Bruce Eric Anderson, Nick Ayres, Jeff Glasson, Luke, Mike, Robin Seidner, Tom Shea, Ed Nicholson, Stefan Halley, Tom Hoehn, Debbie Weil,  Marta Kagan, Paull Young, Kevin, Paul Fabretti, Nick Huhn, dominic, Michael Pranikoff, Kyle Flaherty, Ed Terpenning, Chi-chi Ekweozor, Lisa, David Bressler, C.B. Whittemore, Torley, David Jones, Keith De La Rue, Sean Lew, Tom Cummings, Donna Tocci, Adam Singer, Yianni Garcia, Matt Cronin, Stephen Manning, Jim Dietzel, Clayton, Mike, Kira Wampler, Woody Meachum, Lee Aase, Toby Bloomberg, Adam Denison, Colleen Gatlin, Davezilla, Gina, Marcos Fargas, Marianne Richmond, Kevin Barenblat, Dan Entin, Bruce Ertmann, Sean Moffitt, Elana Bowman, Dan, Andrew, James O'Connor, Herve Kabla, Sachin Agarwal, Lou Cuming, Danny Urguia, Kathrin Lohmann, Rafa, John Galpin, Ken Kaplan, Kathy Mandelstein, BJ Cook, John Welsh, Nils Koenig, James Finnen, Miko, Yvonne DiVita, Juny Lee, Massimo Cavazzini, and Gunther Lie.

But seriously...234.  Do you think that's it?

Everything old is new again

My colleague Brian Haven wants you to know that all media is social.

"If you think about all of the social tools and behaviors happening today, in almost every case there is an equivalent comparison to activities in the past."

The same old behaviors - sharing, connecting, opining, broadcasting, and creating seem new because of

• Reach
• Accessibility
• Usability
• Transparency and
• Recency.

So everything old suddenly seems new again.  For more detail, read Brian's post.

A framework for measuring social media

Do you think it's tough to measure social media?  It might be simpler than you think.

I've blogged before about how game mechanics describe social media participation. Games have scores.  Scores track progress, which results in success or failure.

Although social media channels seem to be mostly qualitative in nature, user activities can be easily quantified.  Although users interact with channels in different ways, four common factors quantify social media success:  Attention, Participation, Authority, and Influence.

Here's a framework for measuring social media:

1. Attention.  The amount of traffic to your content for a given period of time.  Similar to the standard web metrics of site visits and page/video views.
2. Participation.  The extent to which users engage with your content in a channel.  Think blog comments, Facebook wall posts, YouTube ratings, or widget interactions.
3. Authority.  Ala Technorati, the inbound links to your content - like trackbacks and inbound links to a blog post or sites linking to a YouTube video.
4. Influence.  The size of the user base subscribed to your content.  For blogs, feed or email subscribers; followers on Twitter or Friendfeed; or fans of your Facebook page.

There's an "x-factor" that comes into play well:  sentiment.  The spirit driving user participation matters.  The net result of these adds up to a score for social media engagement.

So what's the monetary value of a visit, comment, link, or friend?  Well, the only honest answer is "it depends."  Only you know how much these interactions matter to your brand, regardless of industry, channel, or competitive results.

Now...was that so tough?

Critical observations of 204 social media marketing examples

Last week, I shared a list of about 120 companies using and/or being used by social media marketing.  Less than a week later, that list has almost doubled solely based on community contributions.  Thank you for sharing.

The list seems big enough to support some analysis.  What do you think about these three major criticisms?

1. Big companies are lagging indicators.

• Although C.B. notes: "It's amazing to realize how many organizations now have a presence [when they didn't not very long ago] and also across several different platforms."
• Alfonso responds: "Keep your eye on the big boys to get an idea of what the me-too crowd does. No doubt they do it bigger and louder, but they have to: they're playing catch-up."
• Robert agrees: "I think we all have the tendency to gravitate to the household names to illustrate social media examples, but these companies often are laggards."

2. Are these examples really social?

• Dan points out: "There's a difference between participating in social media and marketing via social media."
• Tony takes this further: "Some of these examples feel a little more like social network digital advertising rather than social media."

3. Stuff is missing.

• Tim asks: "Where are the 'internal' employee/partner examples?"
• Philipp asks: "Are there more examples from Europe or the German speaking regions?"
• Antje says: "Next list should be smaller companies without huge budgets."

Your thoughts, reactions, and observations are appreciated.

• Should we really be watching SMBs instead?
• Is this conversation or lecturing?
• Why are we seeing these gaps?

Graphic analysis of 204 social media marketing examples

Last week, I shared a list of about 120 companies using and/or being used by social media marketing.  Less than a week later, that list has almost doubled solely based on community contributions.  Thank you for sharing.

The list seems big enough to support some analysis.  What do you think about this graphic?

(You can create your own at wordle.net.)

Thoughts?

Social media marketing's scalability problem

I'd like your thoughts on what I see as one of the biggest problems I see for using social media in marketing:  scalability.

In theory, using social media for marketing should scale elegantly.  Most advisors and evangelists tell a story that plays out something like this:  once a marketer gets up enough courage to push over the first domino and launch a social media effort, that person tells a friend, who tells another three friends, who tell yet another three friends, and so on with almost infinite reach at almost zero incremental cost.  Examples like Subservient Chicken, Dove Evolution, and Elf Yourself are often cited here.

In practice, real life starts to get in the way.  You can't create "viral."  (In fact, "viral" is even the wrong metaphor.)  Philippe reminds us of Watts's "big seed" concept, which starts to look like mass media. One-ninth of the WORLD's population watched the 2006 FIFA World Cup final.  Social media vs. Television for marketing purposes just doesn't match up.

People don't scale, either.  Frank at Comcast does a great job, but he's only one person.  Dell has 17+ people on Twitter, like Amie Paxton.  Scott Monty is a new kind of leader, but he's only one person.  How much harm did Exxon Janet inflict?  (Answer: none.)

[Let me pause here and say that I have and will always believe that the purpose of marketing is to sell stuff, whether direct response or 30-year sales cycle.  Marketers who don't believe that their job is to ultimately sell something should become receptionists instead, if all you want to do is talk.]

I do believe social media can help sell.  Social content has started integrating into traditional tactics like banners and emails.  I have a better opinion of Comcast after Frank helped me with my cable modem and will resist Verizon FIOS for a while longer.  From my last post asking if social media matters, the commenting consensus seems to agree, with its impact in awareness, consideration, and preference.

But if social media marketing matters, then does it scale?

I don't think so.  I think the technologies scale.  But the programs - especially those with a labor-intensive component - don't.

[Social technologies are better applied inside the enterprise - to improve existing systems, grow culture, improve productivity, and scale to a finite point...]

Your thoughts appreciated.

Companies CAN'T "join the conversation"

My colleague Jeremiah recently posted about why some don't need to join the conversation.  He makes two key points:

1. Brands can and should use a combination of social computing tools can help brands engage individuals - e.g. voting, tagging, and sharing - which are not "conversational."
2. All people do not want to participate with you in the same way.

About a week ago, I blogged about how it's what's on the inside [of an organization] that counts.  That means people, i.e. individuals on your payroll must be ready to participate in social media.

Your brand can't blog.  Unless you're going for comedy, you shouldn't have a corporate mascot like Aunt Jemima, Jack In The Box, or the Brawny Man blogging.

If you or someone in your company is thinking of blog authorship behind the curtain of a corporate logo, stop and make sure that your organization is actually ready to get social with the outside world.  Because a company can't participate in a conversation, only individuals representing a company can.

This thinking comes naturally to individuals in firms who understand this internally.  Fortunately, it can be taught. (But some will never learn - all people do not want to participate in the same way.)

I want to believe [that Twitter is useful]

  Why Twitter is Over Capacity 
  Originally uploaded by Jeremiah Owyang.

Twitter - do you love it or hate it?  I think your response to that question depends on why and how you use the application.  This drives the type of content you'll find valuable, the number of people you follow, and how you use text notifications and tracking.

Giving the continuing technical difficulties that Twitter has been facing - apparently birds moving whales can be quite difficult - I've been getting less value from my network.  I use Twitter as a heads up tool, to get advice, to connect with virtual communities, and to bridge communications from online to in-person (esp around events).  I was following almost 1,000 people - so getting information was either serendipitous when tuning in or via @/DM.

But I'm not getting text notifications like I used to.  So, inspired by some conversations and posts with/from Mitch Joel, Greg Verdino, and Mack Collier, I've decided to shift the way I'm using Twitter to make the conversation more manageable.  Similar to pruning my LinkedIn network, I unfollowed about 80% of my network, leaving only people whose names and/or pictures I recognized immediately, as well as people who I could remember having a helpful conversation with at some past point.

(remember is the key term here - my memory isn't fantastic and I'm bound to have offended some. My apologies, I will add you back.)

To me, Twitter content works best when personal.  Whether it's something you're doing or something you're thinking.  So I'm trying a new approach to Twitter, because I want to believe it's useful.  Maybe it's just microblogging that's useful and Twitter will ultimately pull a Friendster.

I think I'll go log into Pownce, haven't been there for a while...

Marketing community on Alltop

Looking for some fresh marketing feeds? Then check out Marketing on Alltop, from Guy Kawasaki's Nononina.

Other great (but not as good looking) marketing blog collections are the [now defunct] M20, Mack Collier's Top 25, and the Ad Age Power 150.

Coincidentally, my better known colleagues Jeremiah Owyang, Charlene Li, and Josh Bernoff are also on Alltop - in the "Egos" section...!

Webcast with Visible Technologies and Microsoft

On Thursday May 22nd I'll be participating in a webcast with Blake Cahill from Visible Technologies and Marty Collins from Microsoft.  We'll be talking about "Unlocking Social Media’s ROI through Engagement & Participation."  Registration is free and we'll begin at 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern.

If you are on the fence about brand monitoring or just want to learn more about how it's being put to good use, this is your chance to ask questions.

Searching blog trends

There's finally an alternative to Nielsen's Blogpulse.  Not that there's anything wrong with Blogpulse - it's a handy, free tool for searching trends in the blogosphere.  And there have always been other ways to get at the information (without paying for it) - Google blog search or Technorati in particular.  But Blogpulse delivers a simple results graphic with rudimentary tools for controlling date range and drilling down into results.

Now from Belgian brand monitoring firm Attentio comes Trendpedia - a tool to search blog trends with a bit of zeitgeist thrown in as well.  (Now available out of beta.)

I ran a quick search on the first topic that came to mind after a long three-day weekend (it was Patriots Day, for those of you not in MA, ME, or WI - commemorating the ride of Paul Revere in 1775).  The topic just happened to be the drama around the New York Yankees young pitching staff. 

The results from Blogpulse vs. Trendpedia:

(I admit that the first search I ran was for Joba, "Ian Hughes," and "Phil Kennedy."  Oops.)

From what I can tell, it looks like Blogpulse is on autopilot - a "2005 year in review" feature lives on,  the copyright at bottom is 2006, and latest news is from April 2007.  Maybe a tell-tale sign of the revenue generation potential from a free blog trend search engine...?

Three key applications for brand monitoring

I just had another piece of Forrester research publish - this one on brand monitoring.  Lest you think I went on a Kerouac-ian benzedrine + caffeine writing tear...I didn't (but what's the frequency, Kenneth?).

As you may know, I've been following the brand monitoring market for a couple of years and since publishing the Q3 2006 Forrester Wave on the space, it's clear that the market has shifted.  That's why I plan on updating the Wave in Q3 2008.

In the meantime - it's clear that not all brand monitoring firms are created equally or should be used for the same purposes.  But marketers who don't work to understand the differences before sending out an RFP or running a pilot are in essence using Plinko as their selection process.

I believe that three primary applications of brand monitoring have started to surface, based on buyer goals, vendor capabilities and intent, and business needs.  Clients can read the full research, "New Uses For Brand Monitoring," which explains how and why the three applications matter.  The summary:

J.D. Power and Associates acquired brand monitoring firm Umbria, combining industry-focused consumer satisfaction and rankings with consumer-generated media (CGM) insights. The deal highlights the use of brand monitoring as a key input to formulating marketing, brand, and product strategy. Interactive marketers and social media strategists interested in using brand monitoring must choose a tool based on business objectives, recognizing that the market now addresses three distinct applications: 1) mining customer insight to formulate strategy; 2) quantifying social media to compare with other metrics; and 3) identifying influencers in order to participate in online conversations.

Much deeper analysis forthcoming later this year.  In the meantime, Forrester clients - feel free to set up an inquiry via your account manager to learn more.

P.S. I think our Forrester Marketing Blog Feedback Survey is still open...

Umbria acquired by J.D. Power

Congratulations in order this morning to Janet, Howard, and the rest of the team at Umbria.  The brand monitoring firm was acquired today by J.D. Power & Associates, the customer satisfaction research company.

The significance of this acquisition lies in the acquirer - McGraw-Hill/JDPower is different type of company than Nielsen and TNS - and will use brand monitoring differently.  One thing in common - another brand monitoring brand name disappears.  Umbria will be folded into their new parent company, while Buzzmetrics/Intelliseek have disappeared into Nielsen Online and Cymfony now operates as part of TNS media.

I have a short research piece publishing soon for Forrester clients.

The secret to Twitter...really?

Robert Scoble posted recently that he's discovered the secret to Twitter, which is "how many people are you listening to, not how many people are listening to you."  To quote Scoble,

I say bulls**t.

Why?  You just have to read a post from an hour earlier where Scoble tells a great story about microblogging and starting a great impromptu party at a California vineyard.  What made that situation work? People were following his messages, not the other way around.  In fact, the more followers one has, the more difficult it becomes to filter signal vs. noise.

(I meant to say "the more one follows" there, but the same applies, as people typically reciprocate followers.)

What's wrong with considering Twitter as semi-synchronous conversation?  It's not more complicated than people talking, others listening.  Businesses need to have objectives when using social media; people do too.  Your objectives may change over time and they may have varying weights - but everyone has a reason and different people use Twitter differently.

But I'm not going to say that the answer here is something along the lines of "it depends."  (Being an analyst forces the fence-sitting out of you.)  Social media doesn't work well with a uni-directional approach.  That's the domain of traditional advertising.  The secret to Twitter and every other social computing application lies within the conversation and relationships - which requires not only listening, but also speaking, energizing, supporting, and embracing.

Personally, the way I use Twitter has changed - I only have time to jump on once or twice a day usually during the commute, so @ and direct messages have increased value.  But if you follow me, I'll follow you back (unless you're a porn star or sales pitch - which are showing up more often) and look forward to the conversation.  As tired, played out, and 1.0 as the term may be.

Predicting Super Tuesday winners with brand monitoring

I've seen a lot of brand monitoring solutions that claim to do a lot of things.  Many vendors say they can predict future events based on chatter levels.  Most often, the backup happens in hindsight, which you and I both know is 20/20.

But this brand monitoring vendor Collective Intellect is doing something different - they are publicly releasing projections of US Presidential primary outcomes, based on analysis using their technology.  Why does this matter?  Because the outcome is publicly available so you'll know whether they were right or wrong.

So how did they do on Super Tuesday?

Democrats:

• California.  Prediction:  Obama.  Outcome:  Clinton.  Result:  Incorrect.
• Colorado.  Clinton (close).  Obama.  Incorrect.
• Georgia.  Obama.  Obama.  Correct.
• Massachusetts.  Obama (close).  Clinton.  Incorrect.  [Oddly enough, I haven't seen much Clinton support around Wellesley, the town that shares a name with Hillary's alma mater.]
• Missouri. Obama (close). Obama. Correct.  Very close race.
  

Republicans:

• California.  McCain (landslide).  McCain. Correct.
• Colorado.  Romney (landslide).  Romney. Correct.
• Georgia.  McCain (landslide).  Huckabee. Incorrect.
• Massachusetts.  McCain (landslide).  Romney.  Incorrect.  I guess we still like Mitt here.
• Missouri.  McCain.  McCain.  Correct.

Overall, the predictions went 5/10 (results based on CNN projections).  Could have been better, but marketer decisions typically aren't as black & white as this and more directional.  Credit for putting your neck out there, Collective Intellect.

Contrast this with brand monitoring predictions around the Super Bowl.  All hindsight.  Will anyone else prove their system publicly?  Next American Idol winner?  New hit TV shows?  The next President?  Or does this show that these systems aren't ready for prime time?

Anticipating Super Bowl XLII Ads

Despite the record prices for Super Bowl XLII spots, I just haven't been able to get into the hype.  Why?  Because I care more about the Patriots finishing 19-0.  And if you recall what happened with last year's ads, I'm telling you that not much is going to change.

• Consumer Generated Ads - looks like just Doritos this time around.  It won't be much better than the rest.
• Integrated marketing - another big miss.  GoDaddy will be the only advertiser that maximizes the drive to web.  Makes sense, they're 100% online.  Salesgenie.com will try.  They'll bomb on this one like everyone else.
• Impossible vanity URLs.  You can't drive people to web if they can't remember your 22-letter, 3-word address.  Keep it simple, stupid!
• Guerilla search ads.  Cheap and easy but underutilized again.

If you want to start drafting your post-game wrap up, use this cheat sheet.  Fox has already won.  The Pats are 13.5 point favorites.  We'll see which advertisers come out winners as well.

UPDATE:  If you're looking for this year's Super Bowl commercials, they should all be available on MySpace shortly.

How individuals use Twitter

As I've spent more time on Twitter, the way I use the site/service has changed.  A part of that is becoming familiar with features and functionality, as well as assimilating changes as they occur, e.g. tracking.  But by far the biggest factor that has changed the way I think about Twitter involves the number of people I'm following.  Moving from a handful of following/followers to over 400 has shifted the way I use Twitter - primarily how I use different platforms.  I think this is an experience that others have experienced as well.

Jeremiah took a poll recently that showed most people using web, many people using a client app, and some using mobile.  I think if tracked, platform usage correlates with account tenure.  Most newbies start out on the web.  If they stick with it and discover enough engaging conversation, people get "serious" a.k.a. "addicted" and install an app like Twitterific or Snitter.

But once the novelty wears off - the brightness and shininess, if you will - what then?

The answer's simple - find *real* value in the service or go dark.  Here's how I see some ways that individuals appear to be finding value (not mutually exclusive):

• Referrals.  I've seen more and more people talking about how Twitter drives people to their sites.
• Community.  A place where conversations around common interests pop up quite often, e.g. around social media or during sporting events.
• Commerce.  Companies like Dell, JetBlue, and 71Miles give early notice on great deals.
• Entertainment.  I was surprised to see a string of sexually explicit tweets last week, a user who was literally involved in a sex chat.  (I unfollowed him.)  In a less salacious application, I wouldn't be surprised to see a game of D&D pop up.
• Information/Research.  I got five replies with to a tweet while showing Twitter to a client.  See the reference to Jeremiah's poll above.
• Serendipity.  When you've got a ton of followers, sometimes it's like watching the matrix to see if you stumble across something delightful.

As more people get on Twitter, the ecosystem evolves and matures, while the "rules" bend and get broken.  The bad news for marketers is a lesson straight from Second Life - just having an account isn't enough; success requires engagement.  Will the next lesson for Twitter itself be from Facebook - if and when the day to monetize arrives?

[BTW I'm tweeting here.]

Edelman: "Distributed influence" white paper

Edelman has just published a white paper titled "Distributed influence: quantifying the impact of social media."  An important subject.  I participated in the original discussion last September and Jonny Bentwood has done a super job with turning our ramblings into something tangible.

Well done!

Some Q&A on virtual private communities

Back around Thanksgiving, Doug Haslam tweeted about working on Prospero podcasts.  I sent him some recurring questions that I've been hearing about virtual private communities - you know, like Communispace, Passenger, Prospero, MarketTools.

If the topic interests you, it's probably a good idea to check out the podcast directly.  I'll paraphrase the Q&A here:

Q:  Why should I do a paid virtual community? Why not just do it for free using existing tools and tap into the discussion that’s already out there on other communities and existing blogs?
A:  Participate in both, i.e. integration.  Use the private community for focused discussion and insight, can seed out to external places.

Q: Should a community be customers or non-customers?
A: Depends on company goals; the more specialized the topic, the more closed customer communities make sense.

Q: Is there bias inherent in a brand-sponsored community?
A: Analogy to paid search - acknowledge that brands are there, but as long as you don't meddle too much, it's not a problem.

Q: How much time does managing a community require?
A: No easy answer; will fit into marketing strategy and touch on many areas, impacting engagement.

Q: Do you need to change your marketing process and organizational structure to make this work?
A: Probably not just for communities but definitely for social media in general.

I've done some research into Del Monte's use of a VPC (subscription required); Emily Steel wrote a WSJ article about the same effort; and Communispace won a Groundswell award for their work with Charles Schwab.

Charlene Li on 60 Minutes re: Facebook

  On the set of 60 Minutes 
  Originally uploaded by charleneli.

My colleague Charlene Li will be on 60 Minutes discussing Facebook tomorrow (Sunday) night, Jan. 13th at 7 pm ET/PT.  She's blogged about the experience of being interviewed for the segment and CBS has previewed it as well.

I'll be watching with curiosity - Facebook has been one of the top, if not THE top social computing story in 2007.  The recent Beacon stumble reminds me of working at Razorfish in 2000 when 60 Minutes did a piece spotlighting founders Jeff Dachis and Craig Kanarick.  A lot of people pointed to that piece as a watershed as the company (and market) crashed. 

I wonder if this piece will be similar in nature and a quote like this may foreshadow how true this piece was before its time:  "I actually think [our ads] make it less commercial."  An ad is an ad.

Ironically, if you read the recap of the 2000 Razorfish piece, these guys are describing Web 2.0 - problem was, it hadn't yet been invented.

(BTW I'm on Facebook here.)

Travel Diary and Dopplr

Travel happens.  Dopplr is open to the public and I activated an account today.  What's Dopplr?  A social travel site that allows you to share information about being on the road with others in your network.

I set up entries for 2007 as well as trips I've scheduled through July 2008.  In retrospect, I hadn't realized that I'd traveled so much this year: over 40 different cities, but only three I'd never visited (Barcelona, Cleveland, Rio de Janeiro).  7 different countries, 2 new (Brasil, Spain).  New York was the most frequent with 11 trips.  No never-visited cities planned yet for 2008, but looking forward to some I haven't seen in a long time, like Helsinki and Los Angeles, maybe Istanbul too.

Here's my listing on Dopplr; we can share trips, if you're so inclined.

Tweetfluentials

Your Twitter account has metrics.  You knew that.  The number of followers that a person has can be used as a measure of influence.  On the other hand, that metric could be gamed by followlove, i.e. I follow you, you follow me and vice versa.

So here's another approach from Tweeterboard (thanks @jowyang for the heads up):  a reputation score based on "conversations" you have with others.  So now it appears that the community has found attention and influence metrics for Twitter...now all we need is one for authority.

It's the combination of all three factors that make an influencer influential (earlier thoughts on this).

Do you get it yet? [i.e. Twitter]

A couple of months ago, I published a report called Microblogging For Marketers.  I recently spoke with Jennifer Jones at Marketing Voices/PodTech about the research and our conversation is now available as a podcast.  Moreover, we've made the research available for free to non-Forrester clients (registration required).

In addition to Jennifer, there are other very smart people working at PodTech.  One that comes to mind is actually a former employee, Jeremiah Owyang, who is now a Forrester analyst.  Another is uber-blogger Robert Scoble, who took issue with some of the data in my research.  Let's recap:

• Forrester's survey found that 6% of US online adults use Twitter regularly, i.e. monthly or more often.  (Yes, you may use Twitter 12x a day and have a different definition of "regular."  However, I'm comfortable with this interval because it's the same one we use for other survey activities, e.g. online shopping.  In contrast, the response for daily or more often was 1%.)
• To 6%, I quote Scoble:  "I say bulls**t."
• Lots of comments follow, ranging from the insightful and interesting to the asinine. 
• Cynthia Pflaum, Forrester researcher, posted the best explanatory response.

To reiterate - IMO the number isn't critical to the report's premise.  As you'll hear in the podcast, rather than dismiss this technology based on small adoption alone, brands learn about how microblogging works and determine whether/how this technology or its broader application fits into marketing strategy.

If you're not a Forrester client and would like to read the research, register and read it here.  If you follow me on Twitter, I'll follow you back.  You can also find @forrester there, along with analysts like @jowyang, @charleneli, and @jbernoff.  (and if you don't know what the @username means...read the report!)

Rohit opens the Ultimate Marketing Bookstore

New father, book writer and excellent marketing blogger Rohit Bhargava has opened the doors to the Ultimate Marketing Bookstore.

He's compiled a list of books recommended by marketing thinkers, including  Ann Handley (Marketing Profs), Jeremiah Owyang (Forrester),  Henry Copeland (BlogAds), Dave Balter (BzzAgent), and Mack Collier (The Viral Garden), as well as his own and some from me.

Best of all - 100% of affiliate proceeds go to DonorsChoose.org, a not-for-profit education organization.

For more information, see Rohit's announcement, Mack's description, and the Facebook group.

The Blog Council launches

Andy Sernovitz has launched the Blog Council - an organization for "large corporations" that "have significant blogs." If you fit the description, you should check it out.  Charter member brands include:

• AccuQuote
• Cisco
• The Coca-Cola Company
• Dell
• Gemstar-TV Guide
• General Motors
• Kaiser Permanente
• Microsoft
• Nokia
• SAP
• Starwood Hotels and Resorts
• Wells Fargo

Some pretty good company, if you ask me.

Five questions for social computing strategy

  Can Paixano 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

I had "dinner" at Can Paixano last night - talk about being social!

 

During the day, there was a lot of talk about social computing initiatives and we tweeted quite a bit of it.  As I hear about different brands, industries, and technologies, some questions keep coming to mind:

1. Does it integrate with our existing marketing strategy?
2. Does it build our brand?
3. Does it drive profitable business results?
4. Can we measure it?
5. Will it scale?

There are probably more questions; these are the highest-level ones that keep coming to mind when I hear people speaking about what they're doing or recommending to clients.

Good case study examples should answer all of those questions - we're past social computing 101.  Brands still need 101-type information and there's still a lot of learning left out there.  What it means is that people who are put on stage these days as experts should be delivering the goods, better.

Nielsen Online: State of the CGM Space

Pete Blackshaw gave an energetic overview on Nielsen Online's viewpoint of the state of CGM.  Pete has also traded in his CMO title for the more verbose "EVP Nielsen Online Strategic Services."

Here are the key trends he's seeing:

• Lack of trust in advertising
• Growth and globalization of CGM
• Continued growth of CGM2, i.e. consumer-generated multi-media.  Why?  Video connects emotionally and allows for benefit visualization.
• Consumer Fortified Media (CFM), e.g. Dove Evolution.  Meaning that ads are strengthened by the surrounding consumer commentary.
• CGM redefining network/cable TV.  Premise for "Hey! nielsen"
• Marketers discover Facebook
• Wikipedia further up the shelf, new credibility broker- Marketers and retailers embrace consumer reviews on own sites.  Anticipating more CGM mashups.
• Blogs go mainstream & global.

Nielsen launched a global study on advertising trust.  Most trusted channels?  Recommendations from consumers (78%), Newspapers (63%), Consumer opinions posted online (61%), brand websites (60%), television (56%).  While the options look a lot like the work I've done at Forrester, I've seen different results (because I've worked with an offline and North American sample) - recommendations still finish #1, but mainstream media don't rank nearly as high and in-store ads are trusted as well.

Pete showed a CGM Opportunity Spectrum, outlining how marketers can get involved.  From low to high participation:  unaided issue or theme specific content; product/brand experience & feedback; consumer fortified media/echo effect; outright solicited (cocreation); CGM as page view creator for more ads.

Where Nielsen Online is heading

I'm at the Nielsen Online CGM Summit 2007.  Jonathan Carson and Manish Bhatia kicked off the day talking about the past and present of their businesses with a peek at the future.  10 days ago Nielsen announced the launch of Nielsen Online, combining Buzzmetrics and NetRatings.

No mention of new products and in the near term the focus will be on international expansion, i.e. 15 countries.  However, it's clear to me that, while online is justifiably capturing everyone's attention today, the opportunity integration with offline.  Manish mentioned two key foci for the business:  cross-media behavior and ROI of online-offline behavior.  Credit for taking a consumer-centric approach here.

When you think about the family tree of related measurement:  TV ratings, ACNielsen, Claritas, Monitor-Plus, Telephia (mobile), homescan - there's huge potential.  Like a measurement death star.  But making it work hinges not only Nielsen's own product development, but process overhaul for the entire advertising industry.

Audience Strategy with Mark McLaughlin, Yahoo!

Mark started his presentation with a great quote regarding Thomas Jefferson.  Appropriate for social computing, as TJ focused on the power of the individual.  Yahoo! builds consumer strategy around four pillars:

1. Content
2. Personalization
3. Community
4. Search

Play this model against different sites:  Wikipedia.  Amazon.  Ebay.  Online debates on Yahoo! News. Bud.tv.

Targeting in the Yahoo! model works along audience pyramid:

• Top:  Passion.  Brand advocates, brand equities.
• Middle:  Purchase behavior.  Heavy category buyers, loyalists, competitive buyers.
• Bottom:  Mass market.  Key demographic targets, geographic targets.

Seems to me that the "four pillars" model works.  Thoughts?

Thanks EMC for the Boston blogger meetup

  Picture 1076 
  Originally uploaded by jeremiah_owyang.

EMC hosted about 100 bloggers last night at the Rattlesnake in Back Bay (Boston).

It was great to meet people from the community in person, like Constantine von Hoffman, John Eckman, Scott Monty, Steve Garfield, Doc Searls, Dan Schawbel, Julia Roy, Chris Brogan, Amanda Mooney, and Ann Handley.

Jeremiah has pics.

Looking forward to seeing you at PodCamp Boston next week!

"I just don't get it." [i.e. Twitter]

When I talk about Twitter to corporate audiences, a very common reaction is "I just don't get it."  Hence, the post title.

If you want to learn more about microblogging check out this report (client access only).

Our data shows that 6% of US online adults use Twitter regularly.

If you want to reach an affluent, well educated, and early adopter audience, there might not be a better communication channel out there.

BTW each line in this message is < 140 characters.

@forrester is on Twitter, as are many individual analysts like @peterkim, @jowyang, @charleneli, @birdahonk, @sureshvittal, @carriejohnson, @SFOSkyGod, and @jbernoff.

UPDATE: Many people - namely Robert Scoble - believe that 6% is way too high.  Here's related information from Cynthia. For those interested in the methodology, you can read more about it here.  The specific question that survey respondents saw: "There are also more general activities you can do on the Internet. How frequently do you do each of the following activities? (Select one for each row)"  and "Use Twitter" was one of 11 options, with the frequency choices of "at least daily," "weekly," "monthly," "less than monthly," and "never."

A researcher on my team tells me the number is corroborated from data from another survey as well.  It isn't drawn from Nielsen//NetRatings, which has its own methodology.  While researching, I did d biz and email pownce, but neither responded.

It's fun to talk about whether 6% is BS or not, just like it's fun to watch traffic spike when one gets Scobelized.  To move that part of the discussion forward, I'd like to hear from people who have facts and data to refute the figure, not just feelings.  [But I do care about your feelings - deeply. :) ]

IMO the number isn't critical to the report's premise; more importantly, I explain why brands should pay attention to a small percent of online activity and how microblogging fits into social computing strategy.

Forrester Consumer Forum: Day 1

  the crowd 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

Jeremiah posts a great round up of Day 1 of Forrester's 2007 Consumer forum.

At Forrester's Consumer Forum

I've been busy - but haven't been posting here...  Had a lot of fun tweeting from our Consumer Forum today; follow along at http://twitter.com/forrester.  Most interesting to me = conversation "with others."

Jeremiah posted photos from today.  Thanks to Critical Mass and VML for hosting receptions this evening.

Look for more activity on the blog starting tomorrow at http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing.

Brand monitoring on Twitter

Now you can add Twitter to your suite of free brand monitoring tools.  Tonight, Twitter announced that you can track keywords using the "track" command.

Here are 23 other things you should be monitoring:
1 - 10 from Cameron Olthuis
11 - 17 from Jeremiah Owyang
18 - 23 from Joseph Jaffe

Questions for Richard Edelman?

Richard Edelman will be speaking about "Corporate Image In The Age Of Social Technologies" at Forrester's Consumer Forum.

I'm introducing him and moderating Q&A afterwards.

What questions do you want me to ask?  For anything asked, you'll most likely get a response via blog or twitter.

Keep in mind that I only have a couple of questions and then we'll open it up to the audience to respond to the speech - but I'll do my best to ask anything that comes in here and is relevant!

In the company of smart people

This was a good week to meet people and get exposed to new ideas.

At a client engagement, I met Steve Zades who helps people figure out the future.  He's founding partner of The Odyssey Network.

At Edelman, I was part of a group brought together by Jonny Bentwood, creator of the Social Media Index.  Max Kalehoff has written a post/column titled "What Is Influence?" that captures part of the discussion.  Henry Copeland pointed out a dissonance in blog advertising and a point about HoJo Brooklyn.  Jeff Jarvis was on a Mac and soon to be interviewing Michael Dell.  Steve Rubel was bullish on search, was twittering the least, and caught a lot of grief for using a Mariah Carey example.  Rick Murray was in from Chicago and did a great job of bringing the ideas together.  I also stepped out for a while to discuss Richard Edelman's speech at Forrester's Consumer Forum where I'll be introducing him and moderating Q&A.  Looking forward to Jonny's next steps here!

Back in Boston, Compete and Yahoo hosted tastybytes at the Boston Harbor Hotel.  Kathleen Gilroy and Otter Group are doing some interesting things with their podcasting platform.  I almost worked for Zefer back in 2000 and asked Tony Tjan about the most interesting sites on his mind these days - Knovel and Incenticlick.  I had an enlightening conversation with Katie Paine about brand monitoring and she told me about the upcoming IPR Summit on Measurement.

I also got some great information from companies using Twitter for an upcoming research piece and interviews with Y&R and Critical Mass for a Q4 piece on the "agency of the future."

My JetBlue flights between Boston and JFK were both early.  My Chipotle burritos were huge.  I caught a show.  I'd call it a good week to be Peter Kim.

One month left until Forrester's Consumer Forum

We are officially one month away from Forrester's Consumer Forum - it's going to be held in Chicago from October 10 - 12.  Here are some of the things that I'm involved with during the event and others that I'm looking forward to.

- Using Twitter, Facebook, and Forrester's Marketing Blog to communicate around the event.

- Facilitating the "Tools For Tomorrow's CMO" workshop with Lisa Bradner the day before the forum.

- Forrester keynotes from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.  They have finished the first draft of Groundswell and have great content to share.  I am currently tied (with Cliff Condon) for the highest rated Forrester keynote this year - I hope to lose that title because one or both of these speeches are so good.

- Facilitating Q&A for Richard Edelman after his speech titled "Corporate Image In The Age Of Social Technologies."  Any burning questions on your mind?

- Moderating a panel discussion on brand monitoring, Thu Oct 11 at 4 pm.  This is going to be a good one with only client-side marketers on the panel.  I'm really looking forward to the discussion with David Churbuck from Lenovo, Suzanne Fanning of Fiskars, and Karl Long of Nokia.

- Moderating another panel on using WOM for market research, Fri Oct 12 at 1:45 pm.  Another good one with Dave Balter from BzzAgent and client Steve Scebelo, SVP Marketing at TV Guide.  The value of this discussion is getting past the played out story of "BzzAgent:  good or evil?" and getting to a less obvious but highly valuable aspect of using an agent network:  market research.

And finally, we're working on a meet up for Thursday night...can't post details yet but it involves Andy Sernovitz, David Armano, and Jeremiah Owyang among others.  I'm pretty sure it'll be worth attending.

Applying Buffett to social media

Robert Bruner of Darden shared some words of wisdom from Warren Buffett recently in a message to Darden alumni and on his blog:

"We can afford to lose money. We can afford to lose a lot of money. But we cannot afford to lose one shred of our reputation. Make sure everything you do can be reported on the front page of your local newspaper written by an unfriendly, but intelligent reporter."

These words of wisdom should be applied in toto as advice on how to succeed in social media.

Delta flies into the blogosphere

There aren't any links that I could find from delta.com, but today Delta launched an official company blog.

The old delta.com/change site was set up to discuss rebranding; an old message on the site had this to say for itself:

"Very soon, though, it will evolve into something truly collaborative—truly revolutionary.  We envision a forum for open, honest dialogue between airline and air traveler. A place where your ideas may very well influence how we operate in the future. And a stockpile of user-generated tips that will make travel more enjoyable and sane for us all."

Looks like a blog is the aforementioned next step.  Good stuff.  (Let's hope it has more staying power than Delta's twitter account that has gone silent...)

Thinking through Facebook (for marketers)

Facebook's momentum can be described as any sort of a number of analogies involving velocity.  I've been meaning to write a post but with so much great insight popping up, I'll leave it to aggregation and attribution.

Strategy:

• "I advise marketers not to invest too much time in creating 'a Facebook strategy' as much as they don't have 'an NBC strategy' or 'a New York Times strategy.' Instead, I encourage them to people watch, learn and then plan based on their audience and the big picture." - Steve Rubel
• "Wal-Mart has the opportunity to build a community with these students, but has to resist the temptation of treating this group as yet another marketing channel." - Charlene Li
• "I want to know what's happening in the world faster than anyone else...If someone says something, I want to see it first." - Robert Scoble via Pete Blackshaw

Tactics:

• "Join or build a community, deploy an application (widget), invest in advertising, gather intelligence from profiles, and extend one’s network." - Jeremiah Owyang, "What the Web Strategist should know about Facebook." 
• "Employees are more likely to view important company information when it is just one click away from their Facebook page than if it is on something totally different."  - Shiv Singh, Avenue A/Razorfish
• The annual cost of a sponsored group is $1.2 million - Valleywag

And with all good things comes spam.  The malicious-minded can create fake profiles to mine profile data.

More on the 3 P's of personal social publishing

"There will be time / to prepare a face to meet the faces you meet."  - T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1917.

"New technologies are enabling a more subtle shift that marketers have yet to recognize and adapt to.  'Dissociative identity marketing' would refer to the relationship a brand establishes with the various personas of a consumer, from the blogging persona, to the social network persona or the gaming persona." - Eric Kintz, The Marketing Excellence blog, September 2006.

"Within a decade or so, most of the devices we carry will be location-aware. Any number of location-based services will be in widespread use. And our friends, family and colleagues will increasingly know where we are -- and perhaps expect to know it." - Jason Fry, The Wall Street Journal, August 2007.

The 3 P's of personal social publishing:

• Personal
• Professional
• Public

It's going to take a while for robust identity management tools to develop.  I'd expect to see one from Yahoo!, Google, or Microsoft.

To make things more difficult, additional platforms will emerge that lend themselves to unique experiences:  mobile, vehicle telematics, in-store kiosks.  In the meantime, technology continues to shift culture and society right before our eyes, e.g. privacy fears over E911 tracking for some people are turning into ways to answer "What are you doing?"

This story is just beginning...blogs are about as "dead" as TV advertising - which means not at all, just evolving, morphing, and adapting.