Media 2010
Companies with end to end solutions that have a high degree of digital presence are expected to fare the best in 2010. No-where is this more apparent than with established brands that fit well with Voice of the Customer and community engagement models. Scaling does not have to be enterprise level in order to be highly cost effective, as long as the correct amount of attention is placed on identifying markets and customer placements on various web platforms, and penetrating them with invitational rather than broadcast messaging.
While moving marketing allocations and spends online has proven out to be cost effective, don’t rely simply on banner ads – rather look for creative value ad opportunities and vehicles to provide information or edutainment messages to customers of interest. By providing something with value and substance, engagement becomes a partnership instead of the historic one way street. By allowing and encouraging your customers to help craft messages and help determine what needs and interests that a company can service, you are ingratiating yourself in their domain of choice, and key customers and influencers will by definition opt into accepting advertising and value proposals put forth.
Fail to meet the partnership bar however, and you can expect to fall into the “ignore” category. If you are not addressing online markets in terms of customer engagement, retention, and analytics –good luck.
For some reason the requirement for active participation with mutual value has yet to be embraced by many marketers and agencies. If you are working with an agency that is still trying to penetrate markets with a % advertising allocation approach across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Google etc. without the foundational understanding of required people to people involvement, you should look for a different agency. Push is out, Pull is in. High touch does not have to be high cost, but it does have to be transparent.
eMarketer predicts that online advertising spending will increase by 5.5 percent to $23.6 billion in 2010, reversing a 4.6 percent decline last year.
Search engine spending should be around 15%-20%, an increase from around 6% in 2009. Search engines are THE gateway for discoverability, and will be so for some time to come. Companies will continue to need a solid SEM and SEO strategy, and more sophisicated anagement and maintenence. There is no slowing of the Google, Bing juggernauts – so you’d best assume a fair portion of your online budgets will be necessary. That doesn’t mean you can’t be smart however, and move the balance of PayPerClick and Organic activities to be highly cost effective.
“The difference between the Internet and traditional media like TV is that there are infinite possibilities” online, says Scott Schiller, svp of ad sales, Comcast Interactive Media. “Why would that change in 2010?”
If you want to be successful, hire a company to do comprehensive research into the infinite possibilities so that you can create a best fit roadmap and tactical plan. There is no one size fits all, and there are no magic bullets. Dominating your space takes diligence, homework and frequent adjustments – as well as direct participation by the corporate clients.
Just how does social networking fit into the digital media mix? Many contend that while nearly every major advertiser is interested in social media in some fashion, the true value for brands on sites like MySpace and Facebook lies in customer retention and analytics, rather than as vehicles for display ads. Know where your customers are and how to engage with them. Forget hype, there are plenty of tools available (Call us with questions) to assess when and where your targets are online for positioning and timing of your message. This sure beats the ol Nielsen “rating” system where a dog in front of a TV was counted as an impression. Digital really does have infinite possibilities – are you on board? Are you working with experts?
Of course, no digital forecast is complete without someone extolling mobile’s potential for the coming year, and someone else tempering that prediction. 2010 is no different. Per eMarketer, mobile ad spending should jump by 42 percent this year; yet the medium represents just 3 percent of digital spending.
But at the very least, “in certain categories, mobile will have a definite seat at the table,” says Schiller. “Media buyers like to buy what they know and understand. And everyone has a Blackberry and iPhone.”
Thanks to ubiquitous wireless broadband networks and a variety of portable Internet access platforms, the solution, increasingly, must be anywhere and anytime.
And what about TV? What about local opportunities?
Stations are cultivating online and mobile revenue in the effort to build new business models. According to BIA/Kelsey, TV stations can expect to ring up about $600 million in online ad revenue in 2010, versus $463 million in ‘09. As part of those initiatives, stations are partnering with other local stations to create video news pools and going hyperlocal both online and on-air, trying to find solutions to expensive syndicated programming. This plays hand in glove with an astute local online search effort, and ROI can be delivered in a matter of months. Companies with sponsorship agendas, such as those with athletics, sports, or celebrities should take note. Regional and local scaling is affordable and beneficial.
“We’re all going to be focused on those other revenue streams,” says Paul Karpowicz, president of Meredith Broadcasting. “You’ll see a lot more emphasis on local programming. In an environment where ratings are scarce, if you can create a format that has sponsorship, product integration elements, that becomes attractive.” In total, all of TV’s additional revenue, including Internet, mobile, digital subchannels and retransmission could account for as much as 13 percent of TV stations’ revenue, with online and retrans representing more than 5 percent each, according to TVB. This is a BUYERS MARKET. Companies with a strong marketing mix that is both traditional and digital, and with a solid understanding of new market dynamics – can literally call the shots.
Astonishingly, no-one is sure why the concept of digital re-mixing has taken so long for marketers and advertisers to understand. For the agencies and corporations alike, the current environment is a marketers dream – and prices and barriers to entry are low. Do your homework, and come out swinging!
Winds of Change? Adjust the sails, make course adjustments or be shipwrecked.
Winds of Change? Adjust the sails, make course adjustments or be shipwrecked. Analytics matter.
by Stu Wiley December 14, 2009
Does your online intelligence empower you in new directions, or do you feelstuck in the doldrums? Are you using crowdsourcing effectively and measuring online community feedback to derive your ROI metrics?
Engagement with online communities can replace ad hoc qual and quant, and a lot of clients are cutting their ad hoc qual and quant because they just haven’t got the budgets for it, or activities simply aren’t working.
Online communities are exactly the kind of things that clients love talking about, but when it comes to actually investing they might think the approach is not tried and tested. That’s a mistake. The issue is that they have not been in the online space long enough or are not working with a high end firm whose focus has been decades of online participation.
The potential for online to generate insight and demand gen/lead gen is enormous, if you are in a business that needs to justify the expenditure (who isn’t), you may be struggling to cut through the hype and find solid techniques. Costs are reduced online, and you can monitor activities from anywhere in the world.
The tangibility of participating in word of mouth discussions about your brand and product is a measureable opportunity, however companies destined for obsolescence will refuse to be involved – if only from lack of understanding about the new paradigm and insistence on doing things “the way they have in the past”.
We all know the “not applicable to me” trajectory. Ignoring the signs of nature has resulted in numerous casualties, and we are not just talking about ships or boats here. Corporations who either refuse to adapt, or are too slow to adapt are finished. Some of you may already be consigned to this fate.
For example – If you do not have a comprehensive cross functional appreciation for, a coordinated strategy to embrace, and a complete set of corporate policies rules and procedures with regard to Social Media – you are way behind. Web 3.0 is well under way and you missed it. No amount of applied accelerant can bring you to parity – so you’ll have to grind out one precious inch at a time to get back on a survival course. Winning may not be possible, unless your competition is facing the same situation.
Do you know where you are? Do you know where they are? EXACTLY?
Have you done your competitive intelligence benchmarking? Do your analytics bear up to scrutiny? Do you use multiple methods to validate data?
We are at the confluence of two distinct changes: the current economy and the social change in how people deal with each other. Faceless companies who expect markets to come to them are in jeopardy, the rules have changed and corporations are no longer in power over the consumer.
Customers have a voice in the new world, and will not relinquish the role.
A lot of the time creativity in digital strategies comes from seeing new opportunities, the evolution of previous opportunities and making the effort to recombine the factors into something different. This works much in the way that application mashups meld two concepts in order to produce a value. The key is to retain expertise that can deconstruct previous methods, find new accelerators and redesign a new offering our of the newly combined assets. This is a science and fact based art, and begins with qual and quant research. Once you have the numbers – you can design both the offering and the metrics calculations around the new model to produce ROI. It’s simple – the new world requires new math. If your agencies aren’t telling you this and can’t demonstrate it, walk away.
Parts of your portfolio aren’t as successful as they might have been, this creates opportunities to question strategic decisions that have been made in the past, and their relevance when the winds change. Your company can evolve, and adapt quickly to take advantage of the new world. If you do so faster than your competitors you may have clear sailing to the horizon – but if not, you may struggle just to stay afloat – getting mercilessly pounded by the elements. Your current vessel may not be designed for the new environment – so change it to one that is.
The new paradigm creates a requirement for a more rapid cycling of decision making and adjustment – perhaps even wholesale corporate re-design. Given the winds of change, what business decisions are you going to make as a result of online data gathering and market movement, and who is going to help you with understanding data implications relevance in order to make those decisions?
Companies are certainly more risk adverse in this current climate. What they used to guess at, they are not willing to guess at any more, yet they don’t yet know how to drive clarity into the process, challenge assumptions and quantify variables. Boards are asking more questions about what is working and what’s not, but because there are so many silos within organizations, nobody is fully tasked with understanding what’s going on. That’s just not good enough anymore.
The first fact to get hardwired into your brain is that Digital and Social Media impacts EVERY aspect of your business.
Every touch point should be known, and managed appropriately. There are undoubtedly cross channel behaviors that your firm isn’t tracking. Comprehensive policies need to be established and enforced, and measured risks rewarded instead of feared. Forget focusing on minute to minute stock market valuations, lest the myopia create an inability to evolve effectively.
You have to be credible. You can’t go to market without having tested what you are doing – you need to prove the concept, that it has high probability or working, and that tangible benefits can be gained and measured. Rather than splatter random and disconnected tactical “efforts”, hire an expert to design a digital strategy – then hold your online strategy management accountable.
Expect frequent change, and require monitoring on a more frequent basis than before. It is critical to understand where your budget is going with regard to online touch points, and your project portfolio management should tell you daily how much each effort is contributing to the bottom line – increased revenues/margins, decreased costs, increased brand awareness, decreased risk. Set your budgets to focus on opportunities and measurements of growth.
The mathematical techniques aren’t exactly new, it’s how they are being used that’s changed, and in what mix. The geometric nature of online networks requires geometric thinking, and you need to understand that the calculation complexity exponentially grows as a result. Don’t get me wrong however, this is not quantum physics or theoretic. It is tangible and real, but needs to have an adjusted cultural and business mindset in order to function. Knowing what to matrix is equally as important and knowing how. Knowing what data is useful, and which is misleading is also critical.
Think of it this way – you need to build a multi-dimensional representation that represents a multi-dimensional set of interactions and influences with weighted variables. For optimum results, you need to assess both static and dynamic views. Then you need to do the what if modeling. For those who think in CAD this will make immediate sense, if not – don’t despair.
Complex relationship modeling is both an art and a science, where trend and pattern spotting and even intuition have a role.
Decisions that are based on this data need to be faster and more accurate, and more frequent readings taken. There has been long standing pressure for speed but it’s more significant now because the environment your company is dealing with is highly fluid, moves at the speed of computer processors, and only can be responded to – rather than planned out.
If your agency tells you that they can produce a “viral” brand awareness explosion for example – fire them. They can certainly put elements in place that duplicate past viral spreads – and still fail. This is because the customers are in charge, not the company. We are past the time when incumbent control can be achieved. In fact, the more controlling a company is, the quicker they are ostracized in the new economy. PUSH of agendas does not work in the online world that values participation, relationships, trust, and contribution. Corporate cultures that do not understand this paradigm change and power shift are doomed to waste millions of dollars on unsuccessful campaigns, and face extinction.
You are facing numerous environmental pressures and forces in combinations you have never before encountered so start paying attention. If you fight the power of nature (this new phenomena), you will lose. Better to adapt to the variables and empower your company with forward momentum in a different direction than to be the proud recipient of a Darwin Award.
Adjust your sails to the direction of the wind, and don’t simply and stubbornly hold to the same bearing. Listen to the environment and the consumers, whether B2C or B2B. ASK questions and participate in discussions – don’t just broadcast your agenda. Your business credibility is at stake. In fact – trust and credibility are CORE to a successful online presence.
Case in point –
Currently Microsoft runs Windows 7 operating system ads that claim Windows 7 is the result of corporate listening, with messaging that implied that creative “grass roots” ideas <could these be in the form of bug reports?> from consumers resulted in the product. The Apple Mac team is running a presupposition counter campaign that begs the questions – did it really take 7 iterations for Microsoft to hear the customers, or is this merely the same corporate behavior as has come to be expected from a “monopoly”, so how can you trust them when they have let you down’ so many times in the past?
While the campaigns are clearly targeting product adoption and customer acceptance, Microsoft also faces a huge credibility hurdle online and offline with both Mac users and current users of past versions of Windows – who finally have them working the way they want after years of investment and effort. As a result of this – many online debates are being held, with openly skeptical and cynical parties on all fronts.
Which company is doing a better job of harnessing the online energy of debate, antagonism and community loyalty? How is Apple feeding the fire of discontent and mistrust? How is Microsoft neutralizing the efforts? Are they gathering evangelists and influencers? How do you know? Do you think these online public conversations can be measured?
With billions of dollars at stake and possibly the future of personal computing, you can bet that data is being gathered and monitored frequently. Is this really an equal fight or does Apple represent such a significantly smaller marketshare that it’s a red herring? Are their corporate egos involved? Could this be just another generation of Steve vs. Bill? What peripheral companies and messages stand to gain or win as a result? If you are in a technology business, can you leverage this surge of energy and massive marketing spends for your own benefit? Can these factors be measured so that business decisions can be made?
Is this what you and your team do?
*(“ideas and feedback came in both positive and negative forms – bug reports as well as functionality and use case ideas. If you or your company does not understand the uses of social media for product development please call us.)
Adjust your course, adjust your sails (means of propulsion) and manage your data flow more frequently. Time to respond to the consumer driven marketplace is your enemy, not the consumer. You may have to create several legs to get to the same goal, which requires responsive action on a moment to moment basis. Of course you always have the option to choose to run aground rather than harness the wind and go around obstacles, but you risk loss of your entire vessel and the hard earned treasure of corporate assets in the process.
How do you think your investors will feel about that?
Afraid of Social Media? Take smaller steps and scale up.
Get moving. Evolve or get run over.
Marketing Sherpa reports that close to 50% of business executives reported that the lack of knowledgeable staff was the biggest barrier to adopting social media for business purposes. With so much information at your fingertips, there is no excuse. The new frontier requires knowledgable navigation – so Hire a Guide. What are you afraid of?
Even though the idea and practice of online social media has been around since well before the beginning of the internet in the form of electronic billboards (remember BBS?) and forums, new technologies, platforms and rules of Word of Mouth social engagement have companies and marketers confused. Look, the paradigm has shifted, so put on your adaptation armor and dive right in. Its not changing back, and those who embrace are less likely to receive a Darwin Award. Get help, move forward and get out of the herd of bleating, scared and perplexed sheep.
As for ROI not being measureable? That’s an excuse used by the sheep. Social Media is not only measurable, there are MORE relevent metrics and data sources available now than in the entire history of our planet.
Fundamentally, the new paradigm requires new math, old measurements and linear thinking do not apply to a geometric environment. Social Media is definately and amazingly measureable. You just have to use geometric thinking.
Know where you are today.
If you dont have a grasp of where you are at this moment and what environmental factors you need to consider – go back two squares. Seriously, even a GPS is smarter than that. The first thing it does when you turn it on is say YOU ARE HERE. You cant figure out where you are going unless you know all the details about where you are today, and what touchpoints exist. Go hire an expert to get a Social Media Assessment or audit, conduct a competitive intelligence sweep. If any of your so called “advisors” miss this step – fire them immediately and find another.
Know what Social Media is, and what it isnt.
Social Media refers to an online environment, not a strategy or a tool. If your advisors claim that it is either – then they dont understand the new paradigm and you are better off finding someone who understands the new frontier. A Digital Strategy can contain a Social Media Strategy- which is a set of methods with which to engage and interact with the environment. A Digital strategy is simply a planning process to help companies design strategies and create a roadmap for meeting tactical objectives. A common mistake many companies make is to think Social Media is a separate channel. A Social Media policy and strategy is a component of each and every functional or operational component of a business. Social Media affects ALL aspects of a business. This needs to be understood at all levels of an organization, and across all silos.
The Social Media environment and the effects on a company are NOT just marketing/marcom, PR or sales issues.
If you need some examples – go to www.clearwiresucks.com, www.glenntilton.com, read how Dominos was impacted by a YouTube video, and PAY ATTENTION. Ignorance has cost these companies MILLIONS of dollars and lost goodwill.
The perception of your company online IS reality.
Define your objective. Define how you will measure success.
Many companies spend countless wasted dollars by not knowing what it is that they are trying to accomplish. Because of this, naysayers will tell you that Social Media ROI is not measureable. If you dont know what you are trying to do and what represents success, how can you possible apply measurement metrics?
There are many possible objectives – usually stated at a functional level. These may include:
Increase brand awareness
Reputation management- Improve trust and brand perception
Improve customer service
Sell products or services
Obtain market trending and competitive intelligence
Identify new markets and addressable niches, and quantify the opportunity
Defend against encroachment by competitors
Improve investor confidence
Generate dialogue and feedback for product development
Improve inter-company communications and collaboration
Improve communications and collaboration with supply chain partners
Recruit new employees
Defend against legal liabilities
Improve operational management
Stack rank your objectives by their probable contribution to Increased revenues/margins, decreased costs or improved brand. Don’t try this all at once. Start with the top 3 and work your way down the list. Scale up as you become more proficient. Hire proxies where necessary. What you may find is that your idea of prioritization and the marketplaces ideas of what they want from your company are radically different. Be flexible and adaptable. Cost savings in one area can be used to fund others.
Develop an Online Strategy.
<If you dont know the difference between a digital strategy and an online strategy (they are not interchangeable) please contact us.>
What conversations do you want to have? With whom? Why those? On what platforms? Why those platforms? Are you wanting to be on Facebook because of the hype, or do you have a measureable objective? What are you going to give in return for the dialogue- what are your contributions? What will those conversations do for your defined objectives? Who are the most influential people in those conversation areas? How will you approach those people and develop trust? Enter into a relationship for a reason.
Listen to what people are saying about you.
Conversations are happening right now about your company, your products, and your brand. Not all of them are positive. Make sure you fully understand the subjects being discussed and the tone of the conversations. If you enter into the conversation, do so for the purpose of answering questions and providing clarity. There are good free tools, but the best ones require subscriptions – often expensive.
Learn the tools and use them.
There are thousands of resources available online. Just search for Social Media tools or go to Mashable.com. Dont be fooled, not all tools are useful, and not all of them do what they claim to do. Case in point is Visible Technologies and their claim of “semantic” monitoring. The fact is that there is no way to absolutely tell of semantics or tone from counting keywords, locations and phrases, and Google and Microsoft have spent billions of dollars on R&D without success- and they own the search engines. Beware the “freebies” such as Millions of Twitter Folloers for $29.95. These are automated, and usually trigger a blackballing from the Social Network administrators.
Find experts.
Dont be fooled by the gadget sellers or tools vendors with “cures for whatever ails” Social Media is about approaching a problem with a solution, not trying to force a tool to be a solution that defines a business problem. If someone tries to sell you a tool first- run away. Find experts who do their homework and analysis first. “If you were trying to build a house and your “architect” told you you didnt need a blueprint, just buy a chainsaw and start building – what sort of house do you think you would get?” If YOU are accountable for results, find experts who can objectively analyze your marketing spends and validate your metrics and assumptions. Make sure that they use MULTIPLE methods of validation, not just Google Analytics. (Whose interest is it in for Google to sell you the message that only their analytics are necessary? How do you think they got so big?) Check your experts out – do they walk the talk? Are they present on various mediums? Or is this a case of synthetic fame on twitter through use of automated “followers”. Just because they have followers does not make them credible. Be smart.
This is NOT push marketing.
You will alienate entire groups of potential customers if you try to use those transparently self serving message and advertising techniques in the new world. You are but a heartbeat from a delete key. Social Media interaction is about contributing, not taking. You will receive back to the extent that you put in. If your campaigns are old school, they are already obsolete. If you think you are going to broadcast ads on twitter and get responses, think again. Let your competitors fall into this trap and damage their own efforts and waste money, but don’t do it yourself.
The people and firms that abuse Social Media are destined to be punished by the same, not only be ignored but actually ostracized. Word of Mouth is VERY powerful and the lashbacks can be severe.
Allocate resources to do it right.
Engaging with people in conversations doesn’t have to be a full time job, and can be shared among many people. The workload is proportional to the objective, so don’t short change yourself. Staff up accordingly, and delegate. Some “authorities” will tell you that to be successful at least one person should spend 40 hours per week. That’s bunk. The resources required depends entirely on the scope of the job. You should however try to source the role with someone who has experience. And just because they can blog, doesn’t mean they know how to set a digital strategy or function in social media. It simply means that they can create and hold appropriate conversations. There are many expert resources that can provide these interim resources for you. CLS Global can, so ask us.
Create GOOD, FRESH content.Create content that is thought provoking and stimulates online discussion or conversation, and not just volume. Repurpose content you already have invested in, as long as it isnt too dated. Create a plan to develop the content and let people know when and where it will be available. Dont hide it behind myriads of signins or questionnaires either. You have about 5 seconds when they decide whether to click or leave. Once you have optimized searches to get them to your content – dont blow it. Seek out conversion experts.
Content is King. Content is critical to add value to the community being engaged. And by add value, we mean real true transparent contribution. If you lie online and are caught, it cannot be reversed. Your content should be truthful, transparent, and represent your values and ideals.
Find expert content managers.
They will be able to help you ascertain the right size, positioning, and relevant content strategies so that you can be sure your content maximizes your positive messages and encourages sharing. If you need resources or need to know how to identify these people, tweet us or send us a mail. Many of the CLS Global staff members were online content managers or directors of content management teams at some point in their career.
The good news is that content does not need to be an expensive proposition. User generated content is free. Blog posts do not cost much. Even online video can be had for significantly less than broadcast. Because the stakes are not nearly as high as content developed for traditional media, you can create a lot more of it, for the same money or much less. Frequency is one of the most important aspects of social media so make sure you are loaded with content on an ongoing basis.
CRITICAL : Establish your policies and procedures.
From C level on down to the lowest on the totem pole, and across all departments in your organization. This is brain dead basic business 101. The environment and ecosystem you are in has radically changed, and you need to change with it. Determine who is being represented when an employee blogs on their personal time, set rules and create disclaimers if necessary.
While some companies will literally recoil from perceived risk and not allow employees to access this amazing wealth of interaction and information from work – DEMAND that the authorities allow you to do so. An isolationist strategy is just that. It spells a death knell for a company. Fear is not a corporate strategy, its an absolute GUARANTEE that investors will quickly seek other vehicles and potential customers will deem you obsolete.
Select your most diplomatic and conversant people to be your interface with this new world, calm composed and quality ombudsmen/women. Engaging with customers should not put you off from doing so. You may find the one customer created nugget that saves your bacon in a recession, or opens up opportunities that you never would have thought of in house. If you are asking questions like – What if people say bad things about us? How do I make sure employees don’t share proprietary information? Won’t competitors check us out and steal our ideas and thinking? ….you really need help to get over this phobia. Hire an expert like CLSGlobal to show you how to set policies and remove these blocks from growth. After all – the entire world is in on this – you should be too.
Bottom line here is to force your company to EVOLVE. If you don’t, the market will decide on your identoty and do it for you. You may not like the direction.
If you don’t have the knowledge, hire trainers. (yes, we do that too.)
Those of us who have evolved and embraced the global change will simply look to do businesses with companies who have, and the companies that dont will become chagrined owners of a Darwin Award. The speed of the internet and Social Media means rapid change, so paying attention DAILY and evolving with the trends is critical for corporate success and survival.
How to Kick Start A Community – an adaptation list
I was involved in communities from the beginning of my long tenure at Microsoft, and helped launch a myriad of tech consultant and developer communities and marketing mechanisms that included the MVP program, the developer marketing program, TechEd Developer Conferences, and a slew of community and beta/co-development programs for a variety of technology and non-tech firms. I’ve run hundreds of technical beta programs and feedback loops, and learned a few things about creation and use of electronic communities for business. Some of the comments below came out of an internal whitepaper I wrote regarding online community development around 1996-1997 when I joined Microsoft’s web server product development team.
Do your homework!
If you have not had a recent online audit or competitive intelligence report done, do so BEFORE initiating any community planning. Then check your homework at every review milestone. Change is constant – so factor it into your plan phases. If your core is solid, you can manage exceptions more easily and proactively. Plus, you will be fiscally more accurate as a result.
If you are relying on ad hoc research or basing your efforts on information that is older than 6 months, you are handicapping your own efforts. Your audience and the mediums they prefer are fluid and extremely dynamic, so you need to use a professional resource to stay on top of recent movements and developments. Knowing how your audience communicates and where they move is critical to designing a successful community site and outreach campaign.
Social Media touches all functional aspects of your company.
If you need help designing a comprehensive cross silo approach, we’re here to help. From establishing corporate policy to coordinating functional campaigns, never lose sight of the fact that Social Media is not a standalone, rather it represents a portion of each of your companies organizations and functional budgets.
Conversations between companies and customers will be the name of the game going forward. One way exchanges will quickly become a thing of the past. Finally, we’ll get to an ecnomy where business becomes personal again.
1. Create compelling content on a recurring basis. Brands sometimes create videos, podcasts, or stories on a daily or weekly basis that encourages members to come back. The web is all about participation, so you will need to understand the workload and frequencies, so that you can budget or hire correctly.
2. Reward users who fill out their profile. Folks like to see other friendly faces, so giving them access to premium features or recognition of those who have the most complete profiles should recognized. Recognize contributions – no matter how small. It takes time, but is worth it.
3. Invite community influencers and advocates to the community first –giving them first right of testing the system and then inviting others. By all means engage them in helping you improve, by giving them credibility and by honestly listening to feedback. Learn to weight opinions accurately, and act on the ones that benefit the most people the heaviest.
4. Invite detractors. Risk being snubbed. (Bet you aren’t going to hear this very often, however a large part of our success with clients comes from advocating participation from all types of participants.) Antagonism is healthy and can create wonderful streams of idea sharing. One detractor turned neutral or positive in public is worth several thousand advocates. Of course this takes finesse, so don’t leave these relationships to your rookies to handle. Give respect, earn respect. Invite a competitors top influencer to “represent” (but never the competitor themselves unless you are confident they can be managed. Remember – shoot-outs in public tend to be messy in front of an audience. Avoid the tempatation.)
5. Encourage interaction through conversations. Ask questions, talk about controversial topics, or host a contest that encourages participation. Don’t survey people to death or ask canned questions, just be human and get into a discussion. One way questions NEVER work, so be prepared to reciprocate.
6. Reward top contributors. Notice this is different than “recognize contribution” above. Seriously – give something to these people for fueling the community energy. If they bail – so will others. Those that participate the most, or perhaps, are the most helpful should be recognized on a leader board, and thanked in public. Unexpectedly, send them something nice as a thank you, or reward them with premium services –never money. Some are motivated by challenges, others recognition. If you don’t know why they do what they do so prolifically – ask.
7. Give participants in the community a chance to showcase their knowledge and perspective. This means ALL of them. Great ideas come from collaboration. so encourage and nurture it. Clip any abusive behavior instantly, and rotate the soapbox. I’ve had absolute beginners come up with some stunning ideas – because they aren’t mired in the burden of minutea. Kids do this to parents all the time. Embrace it.
8. Use the community as a bi-directional information exchange, not a one way mechanism. At Microsoft, I specialized in large community development projects built around iterative participation in product design and development. The practice of conversing became a corporate standardization, much to Bill and Steve’s chagrin. After all, it’s one thing to claim customer listening and be able to actually deliver, yet quite another to implement enterprise processes and systems with their money to support listening and participating as a divisional initiative, and then point to the success metrics and demand it be mandated corporate wide – both internally and externally. (For those of you who remember the “Eat our own Dogfood” policy – this was the genesis.) Product quality and sales spiked. Not bad, especially when original ROI was deemed ”schmoozing or goofing off”.
9. Centralize your community around your real world events. People want to find each other before events, talk about the event during the duration, and then afterwards are key. Use the community in your physical events. Do a build up befoire the event, and a post mortem afterwards. Get content contributrions and ideas of what went well, what didn’t and what could be better. People love giving opinions about “what happened”. (just avoid the gossip please…and be kind to people, not cruel)
10. Use virtual events to integrate community. Create engaging events and participate in others. This is the model of the mjultiplayer online games —tackle a quest together around a core subject –communicate, interact, generate dialogue.
11. Integrate with your website –other customer touchpoints and communication mediums. If you don’t know what these associative linkages might be, hire an expert to help you find them. Always remember, aggregations of human discussion ARE the corporate sites of the future. Make sure your call center, email marketing, and external newsletters all integrate community. (don’t forget email signatures)
12. Encourage employees to get active. A party isn’t much fun if there’s no one there, so encourage the hosts (often employees) to kickstart discussions by talking, debating, and arguing about the news, updates, or even relevant YouTube videos will trigger discussion. Represent your company well, and stay within your corporate Social Media Policy guidelines. (Don’t have any? Have your CEO give us a call)
Of course, you have a community manager on staff, right? If not – we can supply interim managers for you until you get up to speed.
Are business jets valuable? Arnold Palmer
As one of our group focuses is business aviation, we found it interesting that the new advertising campaign by the NBAA and GAMA features Arnold Palmer as spokesperson. Professional golfers have been using private aircraft for decades, so it is no surprise that such a venerable statesman of the sport, as well as long time successful businessman in his own right was asked to lend his stature to the campaign. In short however, this is the first time that Arnie has used social media to reach out, and I’m sure there are more than a few of Arnies Army of fans that also believe in the economic value of proivate business aircraft – whether charter, leased, or owned.
Picture taken at the NBAA conference yesterday by CLS staff. 
American Legend Arnold Palmer Lends His Voice to No Plane No Gain Campaign
National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA)
Orlando, FL, October 20, 2009 – Golf legend and accomplished businessman Arnold Palmer is lending his voice to support the value of business aviation to citizens, companies and communities in a new video and print advertising campaign for No Plane No Gain, the advocacy program jointly sponsored by the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA).
“Arnold Palmer has always been an advocate for business aviation, because he has a first-hand understanding of its essential role in serving towns and communities across the country,” said NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen. “For his entire career, business aviation has made it possible for him to succeed in golf and business – all from his hometown of Latrobe, PA, which doesn’t have airline service.”
GAMA President and CEO Pete Bunce added: “Through these new ads, we will be able to draw even more attention to the messages No Plane No Gain has been communicating: that business aviation supports over a million jobs, represents a lifeline for small- and medium-sized U.S. towns, enables companies to compete and succeed, and helps provide relief to people and communities in times of crisis.”
The new advertising, rolled out during the Opening General Session of NBAA’s 62nd Annual Meeting & Convention, includes three print ads and three 30-second video ads. The print and video ads complement one another, and build upon the efforts already undertaken through the No Plane No Gain program to educate policymakers and opinion leaders about the value of business aviation to citizens, companies and communities across the U.S.
With a simple, yet powerful delivery, Palmer speaks to the benefits of business aviation in the ads and responds to those who would devalue the use of an airplane for business. For example, in one print ad, Palmer states: “People who build business airplanes make things fly. People who use them make things happen. A few others make things up.” In one of the video spots, Palmer states plainly: “For more than 50 years, using business airplanes is the single most productive thing I have done.”
Addressing the large crowd gathered at the Opening General Session, Palmer explained why he felt compelled to lend his voice to the No Plane No Gain program. “I know the value of business airplanes,” Palmer said. “I know what they have done for me and my companies. I know how important they are to my hometown. And I know how important they are to this country. So I wanted to speak out and help set the record straight.”
To view the video ads, visit the No Plane No Gain web site: www.noplanenogain.org/Video_Advertisements.htm?m=47&s=385
