Buzz Marketing for Technology: April 2007

The Venom of Crowds

Nastiness can erupt online and go global overnight. If' it's directed at you, "no comment" doesn't cut it anymore.

Most companies are totally unprepared to deal with the new e-nastiness. That's worrisome as the Web moves closer to being the prime advertising medium—and reputation conduit—of our time.

Trashing brands online can also be a sport. Witness the faux ads bashing the Chevy Tahoe as a gas-guzzling, global-warming monster. Millions of people watch this stuff then pile on. Is it any wonder companies lose control of the conversation?

When the Web turns against them, executives face the problem of how to manage the blowback. They have two choices: ignore the smaller furies and hope they won't metastasize, or respond outright to the attacks.

Companies such as Lenovo Group, Southwest Airlines, and Dell now have specialists dedicated to engaging or co-opting their critics. Other businesses hire firms such as BuzzMetrics or Cymfony. Those outfits use algorithms to analyze which bloggers and social media are driving the conversation around issues that matter to marketers. (Trackback to my podcast interview with Jim Nail of Cymfony)

New premium service providers claim they can promote the info you want and suppress the news you don't. Some say they can make information disappear altogether!

But we know better, of course. The Web is like Whac-A-Mole. For every proactive move, another crisis can flare up elsewhere.

Where is all this headed? I believe anyone's 15 minutes of infamy is no longer something that gets buried in the sands of time. Google changes all that, and "ruined for life" becomes a very real possibility. Even if you can rebuild your reputation, missteps cost plenty and take a heavy toll on individuals and businesses.

To learn more listen to my podcast with Chief Strategy Officer of iCrossing Adam Lavelle

Labels: Blogging

How to mine the Blogosphere, a podcast with Jim Nail

Many large enterprises are now monitoring and listening to online conversations about their brand. In this podcast you will learn what firms like Sony and Wal-Mart are hearing and discovering in the process. WARNING: Some of these findings may surprise you!

I conducted an interview with Jim Nail, Chief Strategy officer for Cymfony, a TNS Media Intelligence company that mines both online and offline content for its clients. Jim will provide some practical advice on how you can mine the blogosphere.

About Jim

Jim Nail has an extensive background in integrated marketing through his 22-year career that spans online marketing, market research, brand advertising and direct marketing. Jim was an analyst at Forrester for eight years, focusing on how marketing strategies and tactics must adapt to technology-driven changes in consumer media consumption habits. Prior to joining Forrester, he helped launch Web advertising network AdSmart, where he served as director of marketing. He spent 15 years planning and managing integrated marketing campaigns at leading advertising agencies including Ogilvy & Mather Direct, Draft Worldwide, Bates USA and Hill Holliday.

Labels: Blogging

One Bad Blog Can Kill You

In a recent Wired article, Jason Goldberg, CEO of the job-finding site Jobster, discovered what bad blogs can do, the hard way.

In December, rumors began swirling that Jobster was planning layoffs. On his blog, Goldberg stoutly denied everything. But internally, he was dropping clues, like reminding staff to use up their vacation days. And he posted a list of songs on his blog, including "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" and "Dirty Laundry."

A week later, Jobster announced it was laying off 40 percent of its staff, something Goldberg had to have known all along.

The mocking blog entries piled on.

Goldberg probably hopes this little incident will quietly fade away. But it won't, for one simple reason: When you type "Jason Goldberg" into Google, a link to an International Herald Tribune story detailing the entire debacle appears near the top of the first page of results. Anyone who searches for Goldberg will immediately trip over the biggest faux pas of his career. It has entered, as it were, his permanent record.

Where's the buzz? Companies have watched and will continue to watch their biggest mess-ups quickly migrate to the top of a Google search. This illustrates an interesting aspect of the Internet age: Google is no longer just a search engine. It's a reputation-management system.

Just think about how Google works. When you type in a term, the search engine puts the site with the most links pointing toward it at the top of the list. That means bloggers and discussion boards are extremely powerful in influencing Google's search results. The reason? Bloggers and discussion-board posters are promiscuous linkers, constantly pointing to things they love or hate. Google vacuums up those links and makes recommendations based on them.

Jason Goldberg may prefer that people didn't read that Herald Tribune story, but it doesn't matter. Tons of bloggers and online writers have decided to link to it, and they have the final word.

To learn more about what conversations are happening online for your brand don't miss my podcast with Jim Nail, chief strategy officer for Cymfony.

Labels: Blogging

Are you listening to your customers?

A recent flight on Delta Airlines included a complimentary one-hour delay, followed by a free plane change and an upgrade for an additional hour delay. We were treated to no dinner and an extra-late arrival.

In Delta's defense, we got treated to a free movie as we waited on the tarmac for hours. And when we finally landed, the flight attendant invited us over the PA system “to send them your comments or suggestions via www.delta.com.”

Of course it struck me during all the delays that I could probably send a message to delta.com. But would anyone pay attention? Well, congratulations to Delta because, by inviting me to their website, the attendant made me believe they are indeed listening.

Shame on you if you aren't listening to your customers now. If you want to participate in the Web 2.0 revolution, you must start by having the proper listening channels in place. And here are a couple of listening tips:

The DIY site for Buzz Marketers is Technorati, which allows you to keep track of conversations about your brand. However, it tends to bring back everything out there on your brand in a “most recent order” fashion – so you have to manually filter through it!

If that's too unsophisticated for you, try BuzzMetrics and Cymfony, which specialize in filtering out stray information and analyzing the data.

So where's the Buzz? Smart Buzz Marketers are learning to use Web 2.0 and social media tools right now. And going forward, leveraging social media will become the core of brand building, lead generation, research, product launches and customer retention!

Labels: Web 2.0

Making Money from Crowdsourcing

There’s great interest in using the Internet to 1) allow people to organize themselves according to their preferences and habits, and 2) buy and sell access to them according to those preferences and habits.

It’s unquestionably a huge market. After all that’s what Google does. Google users provide information about their interests in the form of search terms. Using this information, Google can gather up the handful of people who express interest in an obscure term and then provide advertisers with a way to reach them. In effect, Google users trade personal information in return for free use of Google's online services.

This situation creates a perfect market for disintermediators like Seth Goldstein, who think the personal information is worth far more than users are getting back in services from Google and other providers. Goldstein, a serial entrepreneur based in San Francisco, believes the personal information contained in users' click trails, online chats and transactions is something that users ought to take hold of and sell themselves, generating direct payback. So he has co-founded a new venture called AttentionTrust.

AttentionTrust’s approach turns the tables on personal information aggregators. Instead of handing over their information, users amass their own traffic patterns and preferences using a software plug-in that runs inside a Web browser. They can then deposit their resulting profiles in an online vault, where interested parties can pay to see. Prices can be structured on a sliding scale, depending on, for example, whether an advertiser or company wants to contact individuals.

So where is the Buzz? Well, if AttentionTrust hasn’t gotten your attention, also check out GestureBank, Boxbe and Agloco. Agloco even promises to return 90% of ad revenue, sales commissions and other income to its users.

The important Web 2.0 message here is that these outfits have cracked the code on how to help people get paid for what they already do.

Interesting development note: Google recently announced that by the end of the year it will start to “anonymize” server logs, removing identifying data from them after 18- 24 months.

Labels: Web 2.0

Marketing Innovation 2.0, a podcast with M.R. Rangaswami and Dave Munn

Discover for yourself what's new in technology and technology marketing at the must-attend event of the year Software2007. Speakers include Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft; Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com; Hasso Plattner, co-founder of SAP AG; Ed Zander, chairman and CEO of Motorola and many more.

I interviewed M.R. Rangaswami, Software2007 executive conference director and SandHill Group co-founder, and Dave Munn, president and CEO of ITSMA, about what you can expect to learn at the conference. Listen to the podcast, and I hope to see you there!

About M.R. Rangaswami

M.R. co-founded Sand Hill Group LLC and has been a strategic advisor to several fast-growing companies. He has held global marketing vice president positions at Baan Company, Avalon Software, and Oracle Corporation. M.R. has been profiled on the front page of The Wall Street Journal and named in Forbes' "Midas 100 List" as one of the most influential technology investors. He holds an MBA from Kent State University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Madras.

About Dave Munn

Dave oversees strategy, partnerships, and international operations for ITSMA, a membership organization that specializes in helping companies market and sell services and solutions. Since joining ITSMA in 1995, one year after its formation, Dave has played a central role in expanding the organization's offerings to include best-practice, benchmarking, and customer research; custom consulting and training; and a wide range of member services to help companies improve marketing, sales, and business results. ITSMA now has operations in the United States, Europe, and Japan, serving more than 100 member companies representing close to half of the total technology and telecommunications services revenues generated worldwide.

Labels: Web 2.0

Getting the Scoop on Top Web 2.0 Tools

Can you name the most popular blogging tool? Do you know what’s best for RSS? How about podcasting tools?

Well, I wondered, too. So I’ve teamed up with Robert Lesser, President of Direct Impact Marketing, to find some answers. We’ve produced a survey of Web 2.0 tools that is going to help tons of marketers get their Web 2.0 efforts under way. If you have an opinion or some experience with Web 2.0, this is your chance to share! Please listen to this podcast, join the conversation and take our Web 2.0 tools survey

About Robert Lesser

Before launching Direct Impact Marketing in 1998, Robert spent nearly a decade in marketing in the technology, packaged goods and retail sectors. He holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business and an Honours Bachelor of Commerce from the DeGroote School of Business.

Labels: Web 2.0

How to Start a Wiki, a podcast with Ross Mayfield

Whether you are a beginner or an expert in wikis, you need to hear Ross Mayfield co-founder and CEO of SocialText Wiki software. He will describe the best way to roll out a wiki, how to build adoption of your wiki, real life examples of successful wikis, and what is the first project everyone tries on a wiki.

I conducted an interview with Ross Mayfield, to bring back answers to these and other questions. I hope you enjoy listening to this podcast as much as I enjoyed recording it ...

About Ross

Ross Mayfield is CEO & Co-founder of Socialtext, the first wiki company and leading provider of Enterprise 2.0 solutions. A noted blogger and industry expert, he is a serial and social entrepreneur. Mayfield has grown Socialtext to over 2,000 customers with Software-as-a-Service, Appliance and Open Source solutions. Mayfield partnered with Dan Bricklin, the creator of the first spreadsheet visiCalc, to co-develop and distribute SocialCalc. Socialtext is backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, SAP Ventures and Omidyar Network.

Labels: Enterprise 2.0, Wiki

90% of Collaboration happens via email

Here is a fun stat, there are 200 Billion emails a day, which equates to 30 emails per living person (and I am absolutely over my daily allotment) but worse than that is 70% is reported to be spam.

Big deal you say, well actually it is if you think about it from an efficiency perspective. With all that email flying around how does anyone get things done?

It’s worse when you start thinking about collaboration. Collaborative teams of the past and even still today are using email as their collaboration tool of choice. Especially teams that are loosely formed outside of corporate firewalls.

Google Docs has hit it right for those teams and frankly for even small to medium size corporations who are progressive enough to use this as a platform.

Enterprise software served a specific role – to automate business processes in a way that drives down costs. But knowledge work cannot be automated. That’s why knowledge workers spend the majority of their time handling exceptions to business processes, not executing process.

Very often, this knowledge work is completed within email. So if experts estimate that 90 percent of collaboration takes place via email that means upwards of 75 percent of knowledge assets are trapped inside email messages!

So where is the Buzz? Capturing this institutional knowledge and leveraging it across the organization is the power of Enterprise 2.0. Enterprise 2.0 tools are designed for individual contribution and grass roots, bottom-up type development. They must be simple to use in order to draw users to swarm around key pieces of knowledge, tagging and posting blogs and wikis.

Don’t miss my podcast on Enterprise 2.0 with Ross Mayfield coming up this Thursday!

Labels: Enterprise 2.0