It is one of the most sensible commentaries I have seen in this space cluttered by the usual virtuous publishings – listen first, stop shouting, transparency, need for spontaneity and speed of action , or the big question on how to measure Social Media ROI. Why does it standout as a poignant comment when all we hear is the importance of engaging in conversations and building relationships ( they still are of pivotal importance ) ? For me it’s the action associated to doing and making an impact on the bottom line that Jason is highlighting. You have take notice of the old direct to consumer or relationship adage – “Call to Action “ – what do you want your consumers to do now? ( it is an interactive environment after all ) Buy, learn more, fulfill a service or need, or be entertained?

The pragmatist will “just do it” , working the social components and developing the strong coverage of multiple points of contact, using a variety of media as channels, creating the search positions and getting the consumer to do something,  driving quickly to an end goal: consumer action. These are intrinsic activities that bolster success. It is about getting your hands dirty in amongst the fray with your consumers. This is what makes all the difference, creates the learning for optimization, as well as the results.

Its simple action oriented things that work and the list could extend beyond the few points Jason raises.
- Make your blog drive search results to the keywords you want to win.
- Present calls to action that lead your Facebook fans to buy your product or engage further with the brand
- Entice Twitter followers to subscribe to your e-mail newsletter where you can present similar calls to action for purchase or other value offers.

As Jason puts it
“ And if you think doing that turns consumers off, ( or destroys the conversation) look at the millions of dollars Marriott racks up from Bill Marriott’s blog. Look at the sales Southwest Airlines attributes to it’s social media activity. Look at the $3 million Dell reported earning from its @delloutlet Twitter account. Look at Wiggly Wigglers, which has 90,000 worldwide customers, largely because when they talk about a product on their blog they put an “order here” link along with it.

“They don’t do this because they hug and kiss everyone. They do this because they make a compelling argument and persuade you to buy things, then they give you the opportunity to buy them. It doesn’t mean they aren’t social. Just that they’re smart.”

On the far side of the spectrum from these action-oriented successes that go beyond the warm and fuzzy purist conversation there are the laggards as well. Recently I was in a client meeting with a pharma company and was stunned into silence when I was presenting the pragmatic concept of listening and monitoring as a very low risk activity to leads to actions points through understanding consumer needs, complaints and attitudes. The people in the meeting rebutted me saying it was a high risk activity because “if they found something negative or something wrong they would have to do something about it” and then proceeded to mention the Maclaren pram / stroller product recall story as proof as to why they saw it as a high risk activity as Maclaren were having to respond to the wave of consumer criticism. I was shocked to say the least. What they were saying was the very existence of the participatory web was dangerous to them and their business because consumers had a voice and concept of “getting closer to your consumer “ due to the regulatory environment was a relationship they would rather not have. In further discussion they revealed that using social media as a broadcast environment was okay. Pragmatically it wasn’t even in the spectrum of social media practices. Sticking your head in the sand and hoping a storm will pass due to your inactivity isn’t going cut it in today’s world nor will thinking that social media is about broadcasting messages.

So while the social media purists who lack that sense of “what do I do with my consumer next before they drift away onto something else” won’t last, the ostrich approach of burying your head in the sand seems to drive in the direction of extinction. Jason is right. It will be the social media pragmatists that will succeed and hold the middle ground.

As the digital shift continues to move marketing communications to more direct and dialogue driven channels companies should adopt a simple methodology in identifying what will work for them and their consumers.  The dialogue idea is as unifying concept that aligns relationship or socially driven programs with other communications as a part of an integrated marketing approach. As more participatory channels for consumers are developed the need to establish consistent, non-campaign driven dialogue points becomes critical in the marketing mix.  These are not just limited to the direct channels, as we know them; (CRM, DM, email, websites), but really extend across any personal contact that can be associated to the “ brand experience”; customer and consumer services, in store demonstrations, events etc.

A real world experience with a brand is only mirrored in the participatory platforms online and this mirroring reflects the sentiments it arouses in real world conversations.

What ever the relationship or dialogue you want to create with consumers you must have a compelling offer or value exchange. Just as in the real world relationships, digital relationships require dialogue to sustain them.  A good dialogue idea serves as the over arching concept for that exchange.  In helping create a consumer relationship the dialogue idea should answer two simple questions. Why would a consumer want interact with you? And what value are you adding to their life, their interests, or their passions?

The reasons for the consumer / brand relationship need to be unpinned by consumer rational  and emotional needs.  Dialogue can be driven by what really matters or makes a difference to a consumer’s life or facilitate their passions. Whatever the offer,  it has to be tangible, real and add value.

Consumers are pre-disposed to dialoguing about a number of things.

They might want ;
To be a part of the future development of their brands they are passionate about.
To share their experiences.
To give and receive advice and learn from others.
To be the first to know or receive exclusive offers or privileges
To seek more information beyond the brand  (how to use it etc.)
To meet and belong to a community of people with similar interests

Relationships are long term. The success points you should consider in developing a dialogue driven program start with being able to sustain a dialogue across a community or programs for  along time rather than running a campaign and possibly include time driven campaign communications. You should also define the motivational points for a consumer to start a dialogue with your brand and your ideas should differentiate from other brand or companies in a unque way , there’s no point in replicating someone else’s idea or offer.  And,  lastly you should aim at supporting the dialogue across a number of consumer contact points.

One of the more interesting pieces of news I read in the last week was that the Paris-based holding company Publicis Groupe said it has acquired Pour Tout Vous Dire, the French customer relationship management program of a key client, Unilever. While the exact figures have not been disclosed Publicis has obviously seen this as buying a solid media entity that you can build upon. In its original form the CRM program was a direct to consumer magazine that has since morphed into a lifestyle portal online with over 5 million subscribers. This evolution in CRM programs is not an uncommon move in FMGC industry ( but the sale of them to an agency is ) . For instance in France  FMCG CRM programs from Unilever’s direct competitors  like Club Nestle a loyalty club and brand driven magazine, is now an online community and lifestyle portal  Croquons la vie, and Danone et Vous a former magazine is also a  lifestyle and product publishing site.

Publicis obviously values the quality of Pour Tout Vous Dire’s  consumer database who are attracted to a wealth of content and services on the site. Companies like Nestle, P&G , Danone and Unilever are all building and expanding these lifestyle content driven CRM sites. As they boost their direct to consumer communications digitally they behaving like publishers creating specialist lifestyle content with the added benefit of adding product offers and services to consumers. As magazine patronage sinks the value of these specialty content driven sites as credible media entities becomes more real. The value of the audience in these CRM sites is tremendous. Think of  P&G’s  Being Girl sites for the Tampax brand first started in the US is  now rolled out in 29 countries worldwide with a reported 400% more effective reach than traditional media. The consumers on all these sites are demographically qualified and if the CRM databases have stored more behavioral information such as interests, content profiles , propensity to use coupons, etc then you have a predictive goldmine for highly targeted communications as well as good content.

Publicis’ move also underscores the agencies are potentially becoming competitors to the companies they work with. As the media companies are increasing their foothold in digital they are buying up digital properties where there’s good content aggregation and known audiences. The agencies are morphing. Media buyers are becoming the media, investing in online Ad networks and now even as we have seen in this move buying their clients sites. It may not be a big deal for Publicis, however, it sets a new precedent.

Unilever sold its CRM site with a free run advertising and communications deal for five years and may be allowing Publicis to build a bigger media entity then could have built themselves. I have no predictions on whether this will or won’t work. What is clear is that Unilever sold its consumer database as a credible asset. No doubt it had invested hard to build it and its consumer’s loyalty, however, its hard for me to reconcile that sale. I believe that when a consumer gives their personal information to company it is done in a relationship of trust with that company. Yes the company is building an asset and returning a value and service in return, however, I don’t think the consumer information or even their trust and loyalty  should bought, sold, and treated as such.

The brand benefits of CRM and Social Marketing Programs are obvious.  Value exchange creates loyalty and potentially advocacy – By providing a benefit you will be most successful if you also consider the value expectations of your audience. Providing value will ensure your customers continue engaging with your brand in the social landscape. In the sense of making brand advocates of your consumers your exchange might even inspire them to share the value you provide with others.

In terms of marketing communications, many of your online ‘friends’ or fans will only remain a ‘friend’ as long as you keep providing a value exchange in your services, content, newsletters, tweets or updates. The same value exchange already exists in other services that include loyalty programs, memberships and clubs where there are high levels of consumer interaction and the value of being involved has tangible rewards. Its also good to remember that these activities sometimes have a high cost.  Even if you are on smaller programs of involvement the exchange still needs to be in place, small tokens of appreciation always work well.

The ubiquitous social term ‘friend’ should not be mistaken as being similar to friends in the real world. The value of exchange needs to be balanced and considered for the long-term relationship. Short term goals or sales in favour of a brand might not sustain a relationship withits  circle of friends. Brands cannot assume that they have a bond of friendship strong enough to get away with delivering content that benefits the brand alone or doesn’t maintain the relationship. This one way relationship will not work online anymore. So if someone becomes your online ‘friend’ it is the brand that needs to earn the friendship and nurture the relationship, not them. Make sure you continue to deliver value of service, content etc in your exchange with your online ‘friends’ or they will move onto other ‘friends’ ready to give them attention.

So what benefits and value are you providing for your consumers beyond your product?

The word Twitterverse entered the lexicon of social media  in a big way in the past few months.  Its appeared on NPR (National Public Radio ) in the Washington Post, spawned a blog by Emily Chang, of Ideacodes in SF  and  the 1st or beta edition of a  Twitterverse map.

I think the map is the  best and possibly the least abstract representation of  a fast emerging world and was produced by Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks, PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley. He released a beta version of what he calls the Twitterverse v 0.9  last week ( see  Gazing into the Twitterverse). What he and partner Jess3 have produced is a spiral universe that begins to place an order to a complex set of relationships  surrounding Twitter from search, communication, mobile, analytics, relationship management, advertising and events. The spiral representation seems to be like that of solar system revolving around a central star in long tendrils representing  a map of tools and applications  for conversation management and measurement emanating from the vortex of Twitter.

So what does the word Twitterverse mean and where does it originate from?

The Urban Dictionary provides a broad user friendly meaning online. “the cyberspace area of twitter. This naturally extends beyond twitter.com to anywhere you can twitter, which includes cell phones.”  It appears that the cyberspace area is largely undefined or is vague.

Wordspy , a blog on the word lovers guide to new words,  attributes the origins of the word to Twitterverse to Adam Pasick, “SXSW and the Twitterverse,” Monkey Daemon, March 12, 2007

Adam described Twitter as “a sort of minute-by-minute blog that you send and receive from a computer or text message. All too often this takes the form of scintillating entries like “I’m eating breakfast,” and other stuff that you really don’t need to know about other people. But the allure at SXSW is that all the cool kids are doing it. So if you want to find the cool parties, you have to read Twitter. It’s geek clique chic.”

As Brian Solis’ graphic representation illustrates, the Twitterverse has evolved since those early days.  The public, companies, the press, have all run to get on board to explore and exploit the platform as short form news, PR, promotion, and ideas to a range of tools that map the relationships  between information sources, their conversations topics,  circles of influence, and the broad sweep pf readers or “followers”.

To emphasize the size and significance of the microblogging platform Neilsen reports that time spent of time spent on Twitter has grown a phenomenal 3,712% in the past  year. Who ever coined the phrase Twitterverse is watching in awe as this new universe take shape and form day by day.

Top 10 Social Networking and Blog Sites Ranked by Total Minutes for April 2009 and Their Year-over-Year Percent Growth (U.S., Home and Work)

Its good to reflect why this remark maybe relevant. In recent presentation by an Brian Giesen, Ogilvy PR executive in Australia , where Ross Dawson presented the Influencer Landscape framework ( see above ) he attributed  the reasons of the shift in consumer belief to the following researched facts.

• – 75% of people don’t believe that companies tell the truth in advertising.
• - In the US 81% look to word of mouth (be it online or offline ) for decisions.
• - Trust in Media Editorial is is at a low 56%.

No wonder the citizen journalist in us is alive and well, albeit with the aiding and abetting of the new wave of  social communications technologies.

The Driving Forces

The Democratization of Media , Social Media Integration, Social Media Aggregation, The Decline of Advertising  Impact and Peer Trust all play  a role that is aided by influence mechanisms or media channels and touch points, the influence aggregators, and networks. How they all interconnected is pivotal in determining  how people behave.

For brands and companies its the  consumer trust and transparency that  remains as a  paramount concern over and above their advertising. Both managing a reputation and those consumer benefits already ingrained in a product offering become important issues.   Companies and brands that break that consumer trust  run the risk of trying to manage very hard to contain negative consumer sentiments.   Let’s not forget the adage, when a consumer has a bad experience they  tell 8- 10 people and 3-4 people when its a good experience. As we have seen in digital its amplified many times over ,  a single bad comment,  video, picture can ruin a companies or brands reputation overnight as it spreads through a web of influence.

A consumer has an 81% trust in word of mouth. The only clear and trackable way of following sentiments (other than in controlled research,or  focus groups or spying )  is to trawl the digital world where unbiased streams of thoughts and conversations take place. The same conversation can be taking place in many places at the same time , so how do we know which one has more weight than the other? which one has more influence? and which one may potentially be passed on? The landscape of Influence lies not only in immediacy of the contact or proximity to an influential source but also in  the volume of the opinion where the audience is in a dispersed chain of distribution,  or visiting sites where the collective  filtering takes place  e.g. the  most popular  opinion will rise to the top as common consensus. The social media aggregators and the resulting long tail of residual,  searchable and  referential digital footprints creates a potentially long shelf life for an opinion.

In the  Influencer landscape there are domains of influence  both in the networks where audiences gather, meet and talk  and where commentary is redistributed, in the critics circles and social media aggregators. So what are these domains?

The Where :  Domains of influence

• - Blogs, Microblogs
• - Video and photo communities
• – Message boards and forums
• – Social networks

The How : Characteristics of influencers
Its important to define our influencers  by identify certain behavioral characteristics,  as we know these people are really a minority group. A majority of people in social networks or communities are “lurkers” , the observers and readers, only a few people are the real content creators or conversationalists.  In landscape of Influence people are placed in a hierarchy of behavioral importance. Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and the In-Actives.  There are very few Creators, more Critics, a greater number of Collectors and so on. Identifying your Creators and Critics  leads you to understand the influence they have on the greater number of  Collectors, Joiners and Spectators. Creators are the initiators of influence and they share a few basic identifiable characteristics. They :

• - Engage others in conversations
• – Inspire others to continue the conversation
• - Participate consistently
• - Are seen as credible
• - Compels others to want to hear what they say next
• - Create content that is ‘remarkable’

The What : Engaging

• - Process of Listening (Conversation maps)
• - Planning (Influencer maps)
• - Engaging (Programs)

If brands and companies want to engage in the Landscape of Influence its best to understand the lay of the landscape first. Tapping into and understanding your influencers is a growing approach and  knowing what can be influential or what motivates them as influencers is a priority .  The qualitative understanding what drives conversation and reaction  is of key importance.  Understanding the patterns of distribution  is  more of a  complex matrix, however, its is likely that on any given subject matter there is one or two main sources of primary influence and then there are many interested re distributors  who act as  networked satellites  surrounding the source in close proximity. In mapping this influence it is commonly referred to as hot spots , where a dense grouping of people , ideas and conversations are in close proximity to each other. Knowing , when and where to engage these groups requires a  business intelligence approach, involving key data points for a precision driven programs. The under pinning  of this are the relationships a brand or company will create as these are direct communications programs. Whether its blogger outreach programs, external community engagement, influencer scouring, the development of closed special interest communities there has to be a defined dialogue idea or a  value proposition in the engagement. The other thing to remember is that once you create a relationship , its ongoing and you must nurture and maintain it or lose it.

View the intiating source of the Influencers Landscape at  Ross Dawson’s Trends in Living Networks

P & G hosted an EMEA Digital Night at in Geneva bringing together its marketing , ecommerce , digital communications people and their agencies to participate in a digital and social media experiment on a real live campaign. At its outset it appeared to be a daunting proposal , to spearhead a full blown digital media campaign in two hours with the ultimate goal being to maximize the groups reach , push their influence, and market and sell the idea of donating for a Pampers & UNICEF program to eliminate Tetanus. The aim to raise 100, 000 GBP in 18 hours.

Pampers Save a Baby. One pack , one baby.

“A baby dies every three minutes somewhere in the world from tetanus. It is completely avoidable and Pampers is sponsoring and raising money for a UNICEF vaccination program worldwide.”

The ensuing two hours was bold and adventurous as assigned groups armed with a few basic executional assets and a donation landing page split off to devise and execute a fund raising campaign utilizing only digital channels. There were no set rules in what the approach needed to be other than it needed to be “executed with integrity”.

The groups immediately raced to begin and obvious point to turn to were their friends and associates linked in the various social networks. Facebook groups emerged , links appears, a donate widget application got added to personal pages and the conversation began in earnest. The emergence of strategy then began to permeate the groups as each devised campaign message and a reach strategy in how to maximize audience across a multiple touch points making the approach more sophisticated, pointed and less haphazard.

Blogs , YouTube videos, an influencer campaign on Tweeter and through Facebook , chasing and contacting high value donors , negotiations for impressions across online publishing networks linking multiple contact channels and coming together at a rapid pace. In a jaw dropping moment a little while latter a one million impression banner campaign appeared across one of Germany’s major newspaper sites. The buzz and influencer phenomena then took over with global reach. As the intensity of the push to raise money took hold , groups began to monitor their competitors actions and tactics, calling for quick decisions on how best to out wit the competition and move to next channel almost in a race to be first.

Viral campaigns riding on the back of Selma Hayak’s ambassadorship sprung up. Well designed internal direct email campaigns raced through the P & G network.Tell to friends campaigns in the social sites took hold.

A directed and awe inspiring frenzy of digital buzz. The results .. they are a secret .. but it worked.

Donate to one groups target @ www.justgiving.com.co.uk/pampersnewbaby

Save a Baby Blog link

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brand.intelligence™ is used to help our clients to connect their marketing / communications with their business applications.

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” – Jeff Bezos, founder and ceo of Amazon.com.

brand.intelligence™ works like a brain. It has two interconnected hemispheres, one hemisphere is emotional and the other one is rational.

The emotional side is the brand management that is the application of marketing/communications techniques to a specific product, product line, or brand. It seeks to increase the product’s perceived value to the customer and thereby increase brand franchise and brand equity. It is:

1. Creating the promise. Means defining the brand.
2. Making the promise. A large part of marketing, which includes advertising and PR, is about positioning the company and its products in the minds of customers and against your competitors.
3. Keeping the promise. Means managing capability, consistent processes, technologies and systems which are reliable and usable, motivated people who are willing and able to dialogue with all the stakeholders and deliver the goods.

On the rational side, business intelligence drives business decisions. Understanding and forwarding the information to the right people creates a collective intelligence, which can have financial value.

In this new world, information and dialogue are kings. The more good information and the better contact you have with your audience the greater the probability that you will make winning decisions and investments.

What gives value to data is not the data itself but what you do with it. As more people share the same information, they understand each other better, communicate easier and make better decisions.

With the advent of the social media on the internet, brands should accept to loose a part of the control on their image. Brands need to behave differently. They really need to dialogue with their consumers (see article of January 9, 2009)! Marketers on their side need to become more aggregator than broadcaster. They have to help brands to create an open environment for collaboration and knowledge sharing.

brand.intelligence™ could help you to go further in the contact with the audiences through a better knowledge of data associated with a powerful creative proposal.

Begin a dialogue.

Brands need to change the way they converse and communicate with their consumers. The challenge is to move from unilateral communication to a true dialogue. An extremely powerful dialogue on the Internet that has become an unlimited flow of conversations.

Listen and understand.

“There is no bigger truth than what your clients tell you”.

Creating proximity is talking to the right person according to his profile and his identified needs.

Proximity means consumer knowledge and understanding: we must engage the consumer in a dialogue and implement participative programs.

Customise the relationship.

The personalisation of the relationship, online as well as offline, is the only way for large international companies to become as friendly as the grocer next door.

The digital world allows us to increase and improve targeting and messages. Communication is becoming a LIVE event, an interactive and intelligent connection of brand and audience.

Each brand will be able to target each individual who, in return, will receive a personalized message in line with his expectations and needs. The aim is to fulfill, in real time, the formulated or latent wishes of the consumer in order to improve his experience and loyalty.

BRANDS MUST CHANGE THE WAY THEY COMMUNICATE.

Integration.

We can no longer consider media and communication disciplines in a scattered way. We must conceive them as integrated points of connection with the audience. We must tell a compelling and consistent story throughout all communication channels.

“The future of this business is the integration, the ability to create interaction between all the different media. To do something on TV that resonates on the Internet and vice-versa, to do an event that will create a buzz on the Internet.” – Jean-Marie Dru, CEO TBWA

Interaction.

We no longer talk of media. We now talk of “new modes of conversation”.

Possibilities of connections and dialogue are infinite: mobile phone, outdoor poster or even a shop window.

People were once passive in front of advertising. In a few years, all media will be INTERACTIVE, there is a very strong call from the consumers. We will have a constant conversation between brands and clients.

Multichannel communication.

The on-going relationship and conversation between the brand and the consumer calls for the development of a multichannel communication.

Digital media offer many opportunities for consumer content and services. The consumer has gained expertise on the content advertisers push out and he chooses the contact channel that seems the most appropriate to him at time T of his nomad life: web, e-mails, blog, mailing, call center, mobile Internet, interactive terminals, outlets, etc…

The advertisers have to develop informative or entertaining content that the audience choose to receive or not. Conversation marketing requires a completely different set of skills than those, which have dominated the marketing profession for the last two generations.