Buzz Marketing for Technology: May 2007

A Podcast with Robert Scoble on Communities, Social Media, Twitter and More

Ubёrblogger Robert Scoble is truly one-of-a-kind. For those who don’t know him, he gained fame as a technology evangelist at Microsoft and then quickly became the company's most outspoken and influential blogger. He now interviews people like Bill Gates for his blog, and the worldwide media watch his every move.

I got a chance to interview Robert Scoble on the topic of "Communities, Social Media, Twitter and More." I think his insights into how to get started with blogging are spot on. Just observing his blog and his Flickr and Twitter pages offers lessons in social media incarnation.

Scoble is setting a high watermark for all of us. So B2B marketers out there, let's listen, learn and get busy!

About the Scobleizer

Robert Scoble is a technical evangelist, writer, and author of the popular blog Scobleizer. He is currently Vice President of Media Development at the Palo Alto-based video-podcast startup company PodTech.net, where among other things he produces the ScobleShow, a series of interviews and stories about, as the site puts it, "geeks, technologists and developers." Scoble is a lifelong technologist. He grew up just blocks from Apple Computer and played in the garage with electronic gadgets his father brought home from work. Scoble worked for Fawcette Technical Publications, UserLand Software, NEC and TabletPC before landing a job in 2003 with the Channel 9 MSDN Video team producing stories about Microsoft employees and products. During this period, his Scobleizer blog became a favorite of technologists who valued his independence and objectivity. He is a popular speaker and coauthor of Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.

Labels: Blogging, Communities, social media, Twitter, Web 2.0

5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for websites has been honed into a fine art. While I believe in the power of SEO, there is a new discipline beginning to emerge called Social Media Optimization (SMO).

The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more visible in social media searches on blog search engines such as Technorati, and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.

Here are 5 rules to help guide your thinking around SMO for a client's website:

1. Increase your linkability - This is the first and most important priority for websites. To optimize a site for social media, we need to increase the linkability of the content. Adding a blog is a great step. However, there are many other methods, such as creating white papers and thought pieces, or even simply aggregating content that exists elsewhere into a useful format.

2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy - Adding content features, such as a quick button to "add to del.icio.us," is one way to make the process of tagging pages easier. But go beyond this by making sure pages include a list of relevant tags and suggested notes for a link (which come up automatically when you go to tag a site). Also, make sure to tag your pages first on popular social bookmarking sites (including more than just the homepage).

3. Reward inbound links - Often used as a barometer for the success of a blog, inbound links are critical to rising in search results and overall rankings. To encourage more of them, make it easy and provide clear rewards. Try using Permalinks to encourage linking. Or list recent linking blogs on your site, which provides the reward of visibility for those who link to you.

4. Help your content travel - When you have content that can be portable (such as PDFs, video files and audio files), submitting it to relevant sites will help your content travel further, and ultimately drive links back to your site.

5. Encourage the mashup - In the new world of co-creation, it pays to be more open about letting others use your content. YouTube and Veotag have fueled their own growth by providing code to cut and paste so you can embed videos and podcast from their site. Syndicating your content through RSS also makes it easy for others to create mashups that can drive traffic or augment your content.

Where is the buzz? Many rules and techniques are starting to emerge as the notion of SMO grows more sophisticated. In the meantime, begin working with some of these techniques on your own. That way, you'll know how they work and what effect they can have on your new media efforts.

This post was adapted from a blog that seems to specialize in this SMO content. If you like the above content please check this blog out.

Labels: Interactive Marketing, social media

Communities at Microsoft, a podcast with Sean O'Driscoll

You asked for it, so you got it. The number one most popular podcast in my series of podcasts has been "How to Start a B2B Community" with Mukund Mohan, CEO of Canvas Group. So I shared this information with Mukund and asked who I should interview next. He pointed me to Sean O’Driscoll at Microsoft.

Naturally, I've been reading all I can about social media and communities. But honestly, I heard more new ideas from Sean than in all of the articles and blogs I've come across on the topic.

I conducted an interview with Sean O’ Driscoll to learn what it is like to have thousands of communities to listen to and manage. And I wanted to learn how you harness these communities for product launches as part of an integrated marketing campaign. Enjoy …

About Sean

Sean O’Driscoll is general manager of the Customer Service and Support Community and the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Program at Microsoft Corp. He is responsible for developing community-based support models and leading the worldwide MVP Program. The MVP Program is designed to honor and recognize amazing individuals in technical communities around the globe who share a passion for technology and the spirit of community.

For more information on Sean please visit his blog or view some of his posts we discuss on the podcast:

Post with the 5 methods for convincing the unconverted on communities

Post on HD DVD

Post on JetBlue/Turner Apology

Labels: Communities, social media, Web 2.0

Manipulating Viral Buzz

The move to bring a measure of predictability to the still-unpredictable world of viral marketing is being driven by clients. They are trying to balance the risks inherent in a new marketing medium with the need to prove return on investment.

There is still debate over what constitutes a true viral campaign. Some feel it's one that happens organically instead of being planned out like a regular ad push. Nevertheless, agencies continue to be asked for efforts that will tap the social media to build buzz.

Consider Denmark-based GoViral. The company offers video services with a guaranteed number of views or visitors, typically about 300,000 for a U.S.-focused campaign. The company uses a network of niche video sites and other destinations to get clients' content in front of influentials likely to spread it, using both paid and unpaid methods.

For Nissan, GoViral helped seed viral films ahead of the automaker's spring launch of its Qashqai model on sites popular with the car, sports and skater communities. Videos are embedded with software for easy tracking.

The Nissan virals attracted 12.7 million views!

Another agency even tells clients it can land their videos on the list of YouTube's "most viewed" clips of the day, which is sure to drive interest.

Where's the buzz? If you engage people with high-quality content, they won't care if it's branded. And people will pass it on. I believe you need to think about how to crank up the quality meter on your content. Success or failure will depend on that, because otherwise there is too much risk of it coming across as false or commercial.

Be sure to listen to my podcast later this week with Sean O’Driscoll on finding and harnessing influentials in a community

Labels: Buzz Marketing, social media

Where is Social Media heading, a podcast with Chad Stoller

One of the new media firms on the leading edge of innovation these days is Organic. Founded back in 1993, it is, in fact, the first dedicated digital communications agency.

I conducted an interview with Chad Stoller, Organic’s Executive Director of Emerging Platforms, to discuss the direction of social media as seen through his eyes and the eyes of his clients. I was curious about what B2B and B2C clients are asking him for as a clue to what we should all be thinking about.

Chad Stoller leads Organic's strategy for new communication. Chad co-founded Surge Interactive and led interactive brand strategies for Universal Music Group, Tommy Hilfiger, Progressive Auto Insurance, Clear Channel, Rockport, Cuervo, and Playboy.com. Chad has also developed a series of award-winning programs, including the Cannes Gold Lion award-winning "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker" for Reebok and Jeep Evo 4x4 for DaimlerChrysler.

Labels: social media

MINI Cooper Redefines Integrated Marketing

Sometimes for inspiration as a B2B marketer I look to our brethren in B2C marketing. Here's one example worth bringing back for your consideration.

Situation: MINI Cooper wanted to promote a new 2007 model that has only a few improvements on the outside, but major upgrades on the inside. Television and print ads would do a good job of showing the exterior of the vehicle, but wouldn't do so well explaining what's going on inside.

Solution: Working with a limited budget, the carmaker's agency used a series of six connected, four-minute Webisodes as the anchor for the integrated program. For inspiration, the agency looked to retro TV series and movies in which cars were the stars. It then developed a microsite and a series of short online films based on old The Dukes of Hazzard and Starsky and Hutch TV shows. The spoofs, called "Hammer & Coop," revolve around a '70s-era guy, Hammer, and his nimble, wisecracking car, Coop.

Result: Starting on Feb. 1, billboards, print ads, inserts in lifestyle magazines and ads in movie theaters reflected the creative in the microsite and Webisodes, and teased consumers about the plotlines. Web marketing includes banners on major portals and virtual parties with the Hammer and Coop characters in Second Life.

The Webisodes were designed to demonstrate product features, drive people to the Mini website to configure their own cars, and encourage them to visit a dealer. Each week, a new episode is aired on the microsite, hammerandcoop.com, and then is often shared on sites like YouTube and in the blogsphere. From Feb. 2 to March 5 there were nearly 790,000 views of the trailer and the Webisodes, and 150,000 visits to hammerandcoop.com averaging five minutes per viewing. The agency also notes that dealer leads are up 60 percent. Now that is both innovative and impressive!

For more ideas from the agency side don't miss my podcast this Thursday with Chad Stoller, Executive Director at Organic!

Labels: Interactive Marketing

Marketing in a Wikinomics World, a podcast with Don Tapscott

I love my iPod, but apparently so do scores of tenacious hackers. These rogues have created a number of iPod hacks even though Apple hasn't opened its architecture. The iPod's closed architecture is good at keeping competitors at bay. But it also limits what users can ultimately do with the device.

But here's the real question: Is a business model that locks in customers and discourages user innovation genuinely sustainable? According to my instincts, and the principles of Wikinomics, I say no.

To explore this further, I conducted an interview with Don Tapscott, co-author of Wikinomics. Don helped me understand more about this emerging economy and what role marketing needs to play in it to be successful! Enjoy …

About Don

Don Tapscott is a speaker, author and consultant based in Toronto. He specializes in business strategy and organizational transformation. Don is Chief Executive of New Paradigm, which he founded in 1993, and Adjunct Professor of Management, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He holds a B.Sc. in Psychology and Statistics, and an M.Ed. specializing in Research Methodology. He also holds two honorary Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) granted by the University of Alberta in 2001, and Trent University in 2006. Don lives in Toronto, Ontario with his wife, Ana Lopes, and his two children: Nicole Tapscott and Alex Tapscott.

Labels: Communities, Enterprise 2.0, Wiki

150-Person Work Teams Are Dead

In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell cited the "Rule of 150." The rule states that 150 is the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a "genuinely efficient work relationship." At that size, orders can be implemented and unruly behavior controlled on the basis of personal loyalties and direct contact.

"With larger groups this becomes impossible," Gladwell said. He also notes that 150 is the ideal standard size of a U.S. military operating unit.

But over 16,000 people are actively producing Wikipedia. 250,000 people contribute to Slashdot. 140,000 developers are building applications and businesses using the Amazon tools. And thousands of programmers have contributed to Linux.

So what's going on here?

I don't care what size your organization is, there are always more smart people outside enterprise boundaries than there are inside. Opening up your organization to these experts will increase your ability to innovate, to do R&D and to gather user feedback. Such fluid and highly virtual teams are the future, with people working from remote locations rather than in a big office infrastructure.

So where's the Buzz? Smart Buzz Marketers are realizing that the wave of Web 2.0 tools is enabling better teaming. And marketing people are leading the charge in harnessing the power of these teams for better R&D, better customer feedback and greater innovation!

For more on this topic, don't miss my podcast with Don Tapscott co-author of Wikinomics coming up this Thursday!

Labels: Communities, Web 2.0

Search vs. Social Media, a podcast with Adam Lavelle

Search engine marketing has become a mainstay of any marketing department and a must-have in any integrated marketing plan. But did you ever wonder what all the new social media is going to mean for the search engine marketing industry? Good, then this podcast is for you!

I conducted an interview with Adam Lavelle, Chief Strategy Officer of iCrossing, a search media company that is answering these questions and more. Listening to Adam will give you a taste of just how Google will become a "reputation management" system and how you need to be prepared.

About Adam

Lavelle oversees all client-related strategic services for iCrossing. He focuses primarily on leveraging the company’s search and consumer insights to develop marketing solutions to client challenges. Lavelle has more than 11 years of interactive expertise helping clients succeed online. He began his digital career at The Internet Group in 1994 when Mosaic was the browser of choice, where he led the first launch of Mapquest.com. Lavelle has a B.A. in Classical Studies and Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh.

Labels: social media