6 posts tagged “community”

Communities aren't just for Christmas

Apr 8, 2007
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Great little post from "Where's the sausage" about genuinely offering something back to the community.

Another point worth adding, which we always try and make sure clients at Digital Outlook understand, is that any "engagement program" between brand owners and their audience can't be for Christmas, it needs to be genuine. Like any relationship, if you give someone a hug one day and blank them the next... it ain't going to go far. It's about commitment.

Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers

Robert Scoble

Naked Conversations isn't a bad intro if your a community virgin.

Kidscreen 2007 - It's a wrap

Feb 13, 2007
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My career as an astrologer is doomed.

While my prediction of the profile "new media" had at the Summit was right (e.g. AOL US was on the panel for the Leaders Forum and Animax were running a session) I totally underestimated the blissful ignorance people have of the medium and the difficulty they'll face embracing it. They are SO not asking the right questions!

I was surprised to hear Malcolm Bird from AOL Kids (aka KOL) declare that...

They're not taking everyone's content because they haven't enough promotional slots on the service to do the content justice. Has anyone heard about word-of-mouth or search?!!! How are today's hits happening and what does that tell us about how people will decide what to watch in future? Based on what we see going on, consumers will discover stuff because friends say "check this out" or "this is good" and because they're searching for it. Promotion will be very important, don't get me wrong, but in my opinion the importance of these two "alternatives" will continue to grow significantly (just check out Joost) and surely, as long as the ads are AOL's, why should they care?
They're only willing to pay a licence fees and don't see AOL offering content creators revenue share going forward. I'll place a bet now... next year their position will have changed. The predominant model is ad share. Just see what Joost, Google Video and AtomFilms are up to. Don't just look at video... see what bloggers are doing... affiliates and Google Adsense anyone? As these alternative channels and ways of monetizing grow in importance and as content creators catch on... why would anyone go to AOL? Promotion on AOL's homepage... yes... but in an online world (see previous point) this will become less and less valuable.

I was even more surprised to see people nodding at what was being said, considering this as Gospel and probably going away thinking... we need to get onto AOL. The questions should be... what's this new medium about, how did I hear about the last piece of online content and what does that offer in terms of opportunities?

What also surprised me was to see panel after panel accept the importance of online but in the same breath admit that they need to focus on priorities (i.e. their core business). This will be a major issue for them in the long run as online is all about incremental. It is not about 26 or 52 episodes... it's about 1. It's about being nimble. It's more akin to software upgrades.

The questions whould be... how do we focus on producing one episode for online that we're financing ourselves and may (or may not) generate revenue from, when we've got the potential for a broadcaster to fund an entire series? How do we work on small projects for a new medium when we're carrying a big overhead for an old one? Sadly nobody was discussing the basic nuts and bolts issue of managing transition with one foot solidly in the traditional world, the need to dip a toe into a new one... and not lose balance along the way.

So in a nutshell... while I predicted the issues (yes) I didn't predict the questions (bummer). Maybe next year.

Crystal balls, tea leaves and other ways to plan social media campaigns

Feb 7, 2007
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OK… we all know about “social media”, whether you call it community, buzz, viral, 2.0, or word-of-mouth. Some of us believe that embracing it as a marketing channel offers potential and we base this belief on our experience, instinct or, in some cases, blind faith in what others tell us.

We embrace, hold up and shout about the success stories…hallelujah! But what about ALL those social media campaigns, virals or sites that simply didn’t deliver… that bombed, where we expected to hit 10m uniques and… well, we didn’t? I have absolutely no proof to back this up, but I would expect that, if anyone did a survey of campaigns that “failed” (defined as not achieving the original measurable targets) and “succeeded” (defined as having hit or exceeded) across various different disciplines such as PR, media, promotions and social media, social media would come out the worst.

While many companies' forays into social media are driven predominantly by blind faith, fueled by hype and buzzwords like YouTube, UGC or 2.0, more and more companies base their decisions on experience and genuine instinct. While we work with clients that belong to the latter, I worry that the broader social media industry (whether publisher, tech company, agency or consultant) can continue to ride the wave of false euphoria for quite a while. At some point though these blind faith believers will start asking questions and what then? They’ll be absolutely right to do so and who will have the answers? Why should companies invest in a medium they don’t know what to expect from in terms of return, when they have other media such as advertising or PR where they can plan with a lot more accuracy? My concern is that if, as an industry, we don’t tackle this now, all those blind faith believers and faith peddlers riding this social media wave will wash us all ashore.

Don’t get me wrong… I believe that social media will have a significant (and hopefully positive) impact on society as a whole and that it is already a powerful medium for businesses to engage with their customers. I also believe though that this is a very new and rapidly evolving medium which makes it difficult (or nearly impossible) to predict results, but unless we find a way to do it, we're stuck.. Isn't it time to throw out the crystal ball, wash away the tea leaves and tell clients that spending $100k on the next “hot” social media activity is simply a bad idea? It may get them into the trades and, who knows, it may even work, but unless we can say, with reasonable certainty, that it will deliver those 10,000 test drives, why should they do it?

The solution I see is for the industry to learn to work with the unknown, looking elsewhere for planning models that work in ever-changing environments such as the R&D industry. Perhaps we should therefore suggest that our client runs a series of tests at say $10k each, knowing that most will fail and one should work, but all will teach us something? They shouldn’t expect 1,000 test drives from this, they shouldn’t even expect 500… what they should expect is an understanding of how their remaining budget WILL get them their 10,000 test drives and whether a small incremental spend will get them 20,000 more. This is the R&D model where everyone expects failure and plans for it, where investment is incremental, in parallel and itterative, and where major funds only get released once there’s data to justify it.

This may not be the solution we or our clients want, as it is still uncertain and it’s more difficult to sell in internally, but ultimately isn't it a better way to plan for the unknown with a higher chance of delivering great results for everyone?

The professional journalists fight back?

Dec 20, 2006
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What's the future of "professional" media when you can blog your own newspaper, shoot your own film and record your own radio programme for the world to read, see and hear? That seems to be the main question doing the rounds post Time's Person of the Year 2006. Nothing new I hear you say. Absolutely! This question has been bubbling for quite some time. The big difference is that when, on the front cover of Time, you read... PROFESSIONAL MEDIA IS DEAD, a lot of people sit up, listen and react. I'm sure the irony wasn't lost on Rick Stengel.

Two types of response to this seem to dominate the airwaves... the online chatter of bloggers and new media folk revelling in the glory - "we were right all along, old media is dead, long live the amateur!" - and the fightback of traditional journalists such as Marcel Berlins in the Guardian (20.12.06) defending their role in this new media landscape - "people will always want to listen to what we have to say, you can trust our reporting, opinions and reviews, the professional will never die!". Both are wrong I'm afraid.

The new landscape is here. People listen to, and more importantly, trust each other. They check feedback on hotels, restaurants and holiday destinations on the likes of TripAdvisor. They lap up the latest scoops be it news flashes, investigative reports or celebirty gossip. They sift through film reviews, music charts and book ratings. Worryingly for the professional media folk, people often trust these "amateurs" more... because they are amateurs. Readers aren't naive. They know that journalists' salaries are ultimately paid by advertisers; that companies, looking to market the latest movie, restaurant or celebrity endorsement invite them to junkets, food tastings or offer "exclusive" interviews; and that often there's a connection between that nice editorial and that big ad for the same product. How hard it must be for the average journalist or editor to remain truly objective and independent... and my hat goes off to those that do!

Berlins', and other similar fightbacks, are therefore arrogant, feeble and sadly mis-directed - arrogant because they assume that an amateur can't write a good review, feeble because they underestimate the genuine value of review services on the likes of Amazon (star rating, commentary AND a review of the reviewers), and totally mis-directed because old media is NOT dead (if it figures out what's wrong... quick).

We will continue to look to brands we trust (be they publications or individuals), in whatever format, to help us make decisions, form opinions and get information. If those brands offer value, if asked, we will be happy to either pay for that service or accept advertising in the knowledge that, whoever is writing the article, recording the programme or infront of the camera, is getting paid. Some people will chose to write the reviews for free and some will make a professional career out of it, but in either case, in a society where you can get googled at the press of a button, the question will NOT be whether they're a pro or an amateur, but whether they can be trusted.

"Professional" media is therefore not necessarily dead but needs to actually be professional.

Let go of your brand

Nov 29, 2006
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In this world of user generated content, how do I control my brand? You don't and you never did!!!

Brand owners are grappling with this subject in a world where consumers have the tools to make any brand their own and publish what they think and feel for the world to see (positive or negative). Some brand owners try and control (e.g. MGM suing James Bond fan sites) and others look to embrace (e.g. Xbox and their fan site programme). My bet is those that embrace win.

The point that many don't get is that they never controlled their brands anyway. People always talked, critiqued and often recommended. Now they do it in a more public (and measurable) way... that's all.

The basic principles therefore should be the same... listen, embrace, respond to your consumers, don't try to police them... you can't and if you try it will back-fire. Someone called this "brand sheperding" recently which I think is a really nice phrase. The more you do this the more the postives have "share of noise", the more consumers are making decisions on full information than rumours.

Measurement is also an interesting plus... comments are public but you can observe through tools such as Blogpulse or Google Trends. This means you can be a by-stander in pub conversations where previously you couldn't hear. You can respond if you care enough. Caring about your brand... now that's an interesting one. Who genuinely does? You should.

Problem is that many great marketing folks in larger corporations have become seperated from their audience, some out of choice (more comfortable sitting in an nice office than getting down and dirty), many pushed away by big agencies saying "leave it to us... don't worry". It's normal to be scared and not know what to do, even if you know you need to respond.

Anyway... would be interested in peoples comments on this area.