Amsterdam iStrategy conference digest – #istrategy

today’s selection is …

The very thorough and embarrassingly eulogistic review of day 2 of the iStrategy conference which took place in Amsterdam on October 26. The report was written by Bertram J. Croesn (@BertramCroes) a Spotzer Media Intern, and self-proclaimed Budding Writer, Marketer, Musician, and Observer of the World. Thanks Bertram for the nice words!

[panel discussion 1 on the morning of day 2 at the istrategy conference in Amsterdam]

[Review] #iStrategy Conference Amsterdam Day 2

As soon as I woke up in the morning, and without checking SEOmoz, I knew what the keyword for the day would be: opportunity! Given this unique chance to rub shoulders with the buffs in the industry, I inserted my spongiest of brains and proceeded to the Park Plaza Hotel near Schiphol International Airport, where the event was held. I was meeting up with my colleague and supervisor, Spotzer Media Group’s own Social Specialist, Nicolas Griffioen (@NicoGriffioen), who kindly provided me entrance to day two of the iStrategy Digital Marketing Conference (@iStratBuzz) here in Amsterdam.

Audience Engagement, User Experience and Social Monetisation

Upon receiving my nametag, we headed into the large conference area of the hotel, where we docked and prepared for the first panel discussion on Audience Engagement, User Experience and Social Monetisation. Here we got the inside scoop from social media celebrity and VP Brand Development at Tampa’s Head of Lettuce firm, Amber Osborne (@MissDestructo) as she shared some funny anecdotes on yams and experiences on what got her where she is today. I was particularly keen on hearing what Warner Music’s Ritch Sibthorpe (@RitchSibthorpe) had to say, mostly because of my interest in music and the industry. We got kicked off with a successful campaign they collaborated on with pop sensation Katy Perry. I jokingly tweeted that I wondered if I could slip him a demo, instead I did the next best thing.

via Nicolas Griffioen’s Blog : review of iStrategy conference day 2

iStrategy Amsterdam : keynote on social media ROI/ROE – #istrategy

 

As announced in a previous post, I will be keynoting at the forthcoming iStrategy conference in Amsterdam on Oct. 26. In order to introduce this keynote, I have recorded a short video clip with my team which you can visualise if you click the picture on the left-hand side. 

The ROE/ROI debate and controversy is still rankig very high on the Marketing agenda as shown in this post on the Sysomos blog entitled “Is Social Media ROI That Important!”. Actually, 4 years ago, I was thinking like that too, as stated in this old blog post I wrote late in 2008 and republished in 2009 entitled “Beyond the ROI Issue”. 

Nowadays though, I rather disagree that the “numbers are so low”. We are spending more and more, and that – whether we like it not – means that there must be a shift in our attitude. So, while we need to measure things, there is a requirement for us to:

1. dissociate ROI from just sales (savings work too!)
2. dissociate ROI and ROE (which is also a valid measure)
3. know what we measure and what with
4. take all this with a pinch of salt as the goalposts keep moving and we need to adjust constantly (the “Klout” index for instance keeps shifting.

I will be keynoting on this subject in Amsterdam, and you can catch a glimpse of the slides

See you at the iStrategy conference which is due to take place in Amsterdam next week.

Diaspora fundraising saga … continued

The Diaspora* fundraising saga continues with an overnight ban from Paypal and then the re-opening of the said PayPal account “after community outpouring of tweets and emails”. I have nonetheless briefly checked Tweetreach and the report shows (on the past 1,500 tweets) an exposure of 84,393 impressions only with a mere 47 contributors. I suspect that Diaspora users must still be using emails, unless they posted their claims on Facebook?! (joindiaspora TweetReach report)

PayPal Freezes Diaspora* Account, Disrupts Fundraising Efforts  - LAUNCH -

UPDATE: PayPal has unfrozen Diaspora*’s account after community outpouring of tweets and emails.

Diaspora* the open source social network that arose out of privacy issues associated with Facebook last year, recently reached out to the community for donations to sustain the network, which was all well and good until PayPal shutdown their account.

“We’re sorry to say that PayPal has frozen our account, so we’re currently unable to process contributions by credit card,” Diaspora* wrote on its blog. “PayPal is notorious for arbitrary blocking of legitimate donations. We’ll get this sorted out as quickly as we can.”

On Oct. 12, Diaspora* reached out to its members and those on its waiting list to ask for a donation of $25, or whatever they would feel comfortable with giving the open-source company.

But until the Diaspora* PayPal acocunt is restored those who wish to donate to the social network can still do so via the company’s Flattr account. Diaspora* raised more than $200K on Kickstarter from 6K+ backers.

Peter Schurman of Diaspora* tells LAUNCH via email that the company found out their account was blocked when they tried to withdraw some of the more than $45K that has been donated. Friday morning, they learned that their withdrawal had been reversed.

via PayPal Freezes Diaspora* Account, Disrupts Fundraising Efforts  – LAUNCH -.

http://tweetreach.com/reach?q=joindiaspora

Diaspora, the open project to rekindle social media (not to kill Facebook)

Diaspora: the new social media platform

“Diaspora isn’t about killing Facebook or Google+“, the people behind the new social media project claim on their newly opened wall, “it’s about reinventing the social web“. I was very lucky to be granted access to Diaspora, in alpha version, thanks to an invite sent by our fellow Like Minds Alumnus James Barisic. At first sight, Diaspora looks very much like Google+ with its “your aspects” links on the left-hand side, which link to Friends, Family, Work relations and acquaintances.

Skiormas Istraidės, a new Diaspora user spotted it: “it’s a little bit more elegant than G+. However looks very similar yet” he posted for all to see. But the real issue lies beyond the graphical user interface. It’s about the open Web and tearing down these walls (as well as respecting privacy maybe). Here was  Diaspora’s Yosem Company‘s answer, which I am sharing with you: 

“Yosem Companys – 7 days ago – 101 reshares

I’m re-posting this comment I wrote, as some folks said they’d like to reshare it:

The media has painted us as the David that will either slay or succumb to Goliath. (Insert FB or G+ for the Goliath, depending on the media’s narrative.)

It’s also a function of competitive differentiation. You only know what something is by comparing it to something else that exists. The media has chosen to compare us to FB & G+, which is understandable.

The better comparison, however, is AOL vs the WWW. When AOL appeared on the scene, it was the only commercial email provider. You couldn’t send email to Prodigy, for example, from AOL, and vice versa. AOL would force you to navigate the Internet through AOL’s portal. Then the (free or open-source, use your preferred term here) WWW came on the scene. Soon thereafter came communication protocols that enabled different email providers to connect their users with each other. AOL clung to their walled garden approach and slowly over time was transformed from a monopolist into just one of many actors on the open web.

Fast forward to today, and you find a similar situation. FB doesn’t allow its users to message G+ users, and vice versa. FB forces all applications to use their API, thereby losing the richness of the larger web, forcing applications to conform to FB’s development environment.

D* is not trying to kill FB or G+. Like the WWW before it, D* is trying to reinvent the social web from one that relies on walled gardens to one that is open to all players. We believe the world will be better when users own their own social data and decide with whom to share it with, regardless of where these users are online. There is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to communicate with G+ users from FB, and vice versa. There is no reason why you should be forced to use pre-approved FB apps instead of any web app available online in its native environment.

D* wants to enable you to own your own data and enjoy the open web in a social way. It’s not about killing G+ or FB. It’s about enabling users to own their own social data and have the choice to use any service they want, which will force the walled gardens to provide better services, lest their users leave and take their own data to other services online that provide these for them.

English title of my French social media opus to be announced on June 24 on Blogtalkradio

I have been invited by Eve Mayer Osburn (aka Linkedin Queen) and Mary B. Adams for a chat at Blogtalkradio. Here’s an introductory video to the show (due to take place on Friday June 24th at 5.00pm CET) and below the video, a dump from the Blogtalkradio page’s introductory text. In the video I am describing the four main items which I will talk about on the show.

Scoop: I will also make an announcement about the forthcoming adaptation  of our best-selling French book “social media taught to my boss”

[note: intro by the organisers] Summer’s sizzling on the Social Media for the CEO Radio show. Friday 24th June 2011 please join us at 10 am US Central time / 17:00 European central time when hosts Eve Mayer Orsburn and Mary B. Adams speak to Yann Gourvennec, Director, Web, Digital & Social Media at Orange, the key brand of France Telecom, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators. Our guest is also co-founder at Media Aces, a non-profit organization whose aim is to promote the usage of social media for business, to help members to help each other. In his spare time, our guest is also blogging on Marketing and Innovation and is a lecturer atUniversité Paris Dauphine. Looking to pick up some tips on internet strategy and Web 2.0 implementation, social media for business, or corporate blogging, don’t miss this show.

Our show is broadcast live from Dallas, Texas and Paris, France while simulcasting a Twitter chat onTwitter.com/LinkedInQueen and onTwitter.com/SocialMediaDel. Join us by calling +1 (347) 850-8614 to listen or to ask a question on air. Orm Tweet your questions and comments to @LinkedInQueen or @SocialMediaDel using #SM4CEO.

Andy Sernovitz: “large companies getting into social media need support and SMBC was the missing piece in that puzzle”

Last week, I was attending the Blogwell and SMBC meetings in Philadelphia. I also had an opportunity to sit with Andy Sernovitz, the founder of SMBC and well known author of the Word of Mouth Marketing opus.

It’s now more than 2 1/2 years since I joined the former blogcouncil, now known as Social Media Business Council, and a lot of water has gone under the bridge. I thought, as Hervé Kabla and myself – co-founders of Media Aces in France – are currently finalising our book entitled ‘Social Media Taught to My Boss’ (in French, but I’m open to suggestions from publishers), that it would be a great idea to sit with Andy and review the history and principles of SMBC as well as take a bit of hindsight and see how things had developed over the years. It’s hard to describe but spending 3 years of field practice in Social Media for a large company implies that a lot of work and effort has been put into these initiatives. Sometimes it’s good to put down one’s tools and muse.

Andy keeps repeating that doing Social Media for large groups is not as easy as doing the same for an individual or a small shop. I know that many people must not believe that this is true. « You are a big brand hence it’s way too easy » a lot of people must think. Yet nothing has ever been more true. Innovating within a large enterprise is a never-ending, groundhod day-like heavy-lifting exercise. This is why SMBC is important. It enables the heads of Social Media like us to get together, to help each other and to learn from one another. This is what Andy is referring to as being the « missing piece in the puzzle ».

And this is also why there are now more than 150 members within SMBC. Hats off Andy!

here are some of the 150 members of SMBC as of now …

Don’t be prejudiced: b2b is the future of social media!

Time and time again, I have heard people say that b2c is better suited to social media than b2b. As a matter of fact, I am not at all sure about that. The fact that there are fewer b2b brands jumping on the bandwagon is probably more due to the maturity of that sector than the fact that the medium is not adapted to b2b.

Indeed, if one wants social media to have an impact, one needs to foster collaboration and create communities, which is generally done through 3 main things: passion, mutual help and common benefit. These 3 common ingredients of collaboration and social media are in fact very commonplace in the b2b arena; communities are often smaller, more specialised, but also very focused on their abilities to deliver and

illustration & maps by Mongabay.com

always ready to debate on technical points, points of view etc.

Besides, business to business is far less exposed than consumer marketing. In the recent Nestlé example, in which the Swiss firm has not quite been able to appraise the situation and deliver appropriate responses, online fighting with Greenpeace and other activists on social network is an unfair battle for b2c brands. The leeway that brands have in such cases to defend themselves is not very significant – and the case made by Greenpeace is a bit overwhelming too (see maps on the right hand side, courtesy of mongabay.com). Indeed, Nestlé uses Palm oil, which is both an issue from an ecological and dietary point of view, granted; but all mass producers of foodstuffs use palm oil because it’s cheaper and plentiful (now we know why). When activists target a company like this one, the result can be terrible, even though I am not at all certain that Facebook will have the best of Nestlé, the effect on brand equity is still very bad at the very least. At the end of the day, the Swiss manufacturer has yielded to pressure, but instead of turning this into a customer benefit, it’s more a matter of acknowledging their “mistake” and trying to catch up with the criticisms.

As far as b2b is concerned, there is less resentment, clients are more prone to negotiate than complain online, and they also know that when complaints are voiced too crudely online, it’s not always good for your own – and your company’s – reputation either. Besides, in b2b it is also easier for clients to make their points directly to sales and/or marketing. I have heard example in the United States of software vendors (I cannot quote brands) having problems with former employees who avenged themselves by becoming trolls (that is to say online detractors on forums ands social media), but in general the b2b environment is more straight-laced and more likely to trigger responsible discussions.

One may argue that you might get fewer comments on b2b social media and blogs in particular (at Orange Business Services we got 1,500 in 2009 only, so it’s not too bad in fact) but when we get some they are a lot better and more interesting than most of the comments that you get in b2c. Most of the time, they are passionate discussions about in-depth subjects, including complex points of views and explanations. How complex can you get on a consumer product? Usually, it doesn’t get very far or it gets round in circle. In b2b, co-creation and co-innovation is already old-hat, so why not use the Internet to pursue the discussion online?

Such discussions and comments enable one to improve one’s products (it happened to us 4 times in 2009), and it can even help us improve our knowledge when an Internet reader remarks on one of our articles, corrects our mistakes and helps us improve our points of view and visions. A little counter intuitively, I would even venture to say that b2b is the future of social media, because it is b2b brands which can actually most benefit from the use of these tools. We established the proof of this with our @orangebusiness twitter account by placing our brand in the top 10 French brands on Twitter, right behind worldwide renowned brands like Louis Vuitton or Yves Saint Laurent (source:  [Fr]01 informatique, May 2010) and even above Air France. Yet, being popular on the web with a brand like Air France is a lot easier when you think about it, the competition should even be unfair. No, it is unfair; but such is the passion triggered by what we did collectively that we are on the verge of building what is the nirvana of social marketing: a community (Air France already has one, it was created by one of their fans but it’s hard to admit that you have to relinquish the responsibility for your brand even though this is the right thing to do when a community already exists).

http://twitter.com/orangebusiness is the 6th French brand on Twitter (source: 01 informatique May 2010, April numbers)

Lastly, it is difficult for a b2b firm to do traditional advertising and namely TV commercials. Often, budgets are tight and TV commercials require vast amounts of money while delivering sometimes variable results. Into the bargain, most b2b players are reluctant to spread the word about niche products on popular TVs networks. Social media, on the contrary, proves an efficient and economical way to market b2b products: in other words, Nestlé less needs Facebook than we need Twitter (mark my word, I didn’t write does not need Facebook).

B2b is really well suited to social media even though this is not what you will find on the headlines because its subjects are more technical and — if taken at face value — less pertinent for consumers. But at the end of the day, this is also what keeps trolls at bay!

And this is also why a lot of b2b marketing budgets are dormant due to the lack of new ideas whereas so much can be done.

note : the illustrations and pictures are from Microsoft clipart gallery

Microsoft at blogwell 3 : listening in the social media era

The first presentation at BlogWell number three in New York, was that of Nestor Portillo, worldwide director of community and online support for Microsoft. There are hundreds of products and services at Microsoft, and by global operations, Microsoft means that it has direct presence in 80 countries. There are many forums in which one can answer questions and initiate conversations, and to be honest, this is not really new to Microsoft.

Internally, there are more than 5000 blogs at Microsoft already, which are aimed at tackling various subjects such as technology, products and services. Some are team blogs, some individual blogs some are Corporate blogs and so on and there are even blogs for some of Microsoft’s VP’s. Mr. Portillo was involved in social media three years ago are, which means actually working on blogs, twitter etc.

• read on at http://blogs.orange-business.com

why big business needs social media … under certain conditions

 

Kogart House in Andrassy Ut in Budapest - Digital Marketing Forum 2009

 

On May 5, 2009 I was invited to deliver a presentation at the Digital Marketing Forum in Budapest, Hungary. The seminar was chaired and facilitated by fellow LinkedIn networker, Marketing expert and professional presenter Davig Hughes (apparently an amateur surfboarder too). 

The presentation is also made available online at Slideshare.net:

 

enterprise 2.0: are you ready for the Yammer take-off?

this is the latest post from our friend Rob Evans. Rob is an expert blogger and he joined the Orange Blog Live community recently. The reason why I’m relaying this post is that Rob is describing here how Yammer is becoming really big in the business community. Yammer being a new micro-blogging platform to which employees can register using their business e-mail address. The suffix of your e-mail address (@ibm.com, @hp.com etc.) is the tag which will automatically identify you as part of a Corporate community. And it’s true that Yammer is catching like wildfire.

Now guess what! Rob and I got in contact precisely through Yammer and this is how he ended up enlisting in our blog initiative. Did you need a proof that Yammer is a great tool?

Over to Rob now:

Will Yammer follow hot on the heels of Twitter? by Rob Evans (Orange Business Services)

Use of Twitter, the micro-blogging web-site that allows people to post 140-character updates, has exploded in the UK over the last few months; traffic to the site increased by a staggering 974% over the past year according to Techcrunch UK. The site itself now ranks as the 291^st most visited site in the UK, and was described by the Telegraph as the best known microblogging site:

Twitter is probably the best known of all the “microblogging” sites, and it has been incredibly popular with geeks and the technorati since it launched in 2006. People post messages to the site, either via the web or by text message, and these “tweets” are forwarded on to their network of friends and contacts

Twitter’s seminal moment in the UK was on the Jonathan Ross show on the 23rd of January . This show marked the return of Jonathan Ross following an “enforced holiday”. Both the presenter and his guest Stephen Fry- a self-confessed geek and blogger- are avid users of Twitter, and on the show they discussed how the site works and how they use it.

>> Read on at the Orange Business Live Blog http://blogs.orange-business.com/live/

The Blog Council | Here are a few trustworthy corporate blogs

Blog Council members working hard under Andy Sernovitz's supervision

Corporate blogging isn’t easy… And Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff published an interesting report about why people don’t trust most company blogs. In fact, looking closer at Josh’s comments, it’s not corportae blogs but corporate speak that clients don’t trust.

But this is no news to us. We’ve been going on about that for donkeys’ years. So now is the time that corporations react differently and start real conversations with their ecosystems (in b2b, it’s not just about clients, an average 21 persons are taking part in any one b2b decision in large 1000+ employee companies according to a Marketing Sherpa study).

So, what are the corporate blogs which can be trusted? Here’s the Blog Council’s take on the phenomenon, and guess what?! The Orange Business Live blog is one of them. Cheers to our writers!

The Blog Council | Here are a few trustworthy corporate blogs

Posted using ShareThis

 

Here are some other examples of trustworthy blogs, too (and yes, they are all Blog Council members):

• AccuQuote
• Analog Devices
• Cisco Systems
• Coca-Cola
• Dell
• General Electric
• General Motors
• Graco (Newell Rubbermaid)
• Intel
• Lenovo
• Mayo Clinic
• Molson
• Nokia
• Orange Business Services
• Petro-Canada
• Pitney Bowes
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Rubbermaid
• SAP
• Sharpie (Newell Rubbermaid)
• Walmart
• Wells Fargo

“Video is the medium of the future” Cisco Social Media Expert Announces

In this article we’ll describe the take aways from John Earnhardt’s
presentation at BlogWell (http://www.gaspedal.com/blogwell) about the development of Corporate WebTVs and Vlogging and I will also establish a comparison – in part two of this post – with our own experience on the launch of our own WebTV at http://orange-business.tv

Video usage on the way up

There has been a lot of talking about that for a long long time, and by dint of spreading the self-fulfilling prophecy we are now witnessing an incredible development of video usage on the Internet. I am not afraid
to say now that WebTVs and videos in general are an absolute must-have for website owners. And it’s not just about YouTube and other social media websites. Of course videos are used and disseminated through this kind of websites. But there are also private WebTVs being set up by enterprises and there are good reasons for this. Big logos are now using this new means of communications to send more direct messages, less top-down, easier to record and understand.

Cisco’s John Earnhardt who was speaking at the BlogWell (http://www.gaspedal.com/blogwell) conference at the end of October 2008 in San Jose, California (BlogWell was an event organised by GasPedal, Andy Sernovitz’s company, and took place at the conference centre of San Jose on October 28, 2008. Andy Sernovitz is also the author of Word-of-mouth Marketing: http://www.wordofmouthbook.com)
praised this new medium quite extensively and gave us insight as to how Cisco is making the most of its use. John is in charge of multimedia on behalf of the American equipment manufacturer.

read more on the Orange Business Live blog

enterprise collaboration matrix: positioning the various types of services

 

I’ve already had the opportunity to touch on the important subject of the return on investment of Web conferencing in a previous post published in three separate instalments on this very blog. One of the questions that came to my mind following that post is related to the comparison between various conferencing modes. Telepresence may be on top of the media agenda at the moment, but I don’t think that this will make the need for different types of conferencing modes any less important. On the contrary, the advent of telepresence is breathing life into this entire industry. This is a typical example of a competitive advantage applied to an industry as a whole, as Michael Porter would have it.

Having established this fact, what is the difference between the various conferencing modes and what makes them complementary rather than mutually exclusive? I have attempted to represent a number conferencing alternatives in the following slideshow in order to highlight how complimentary all these solutions could be.

• read on at this address on the Business Value & ICT blog by Orange

ROI study sheds light on conference benefits (2)

This is part two of our article on web conferencing ROI based on the Frost & Sullivan and WebEx document dedicated to the return on investment for web conferencing services.

In part one of this article, we have established that the main benefits which can be derived from web conferencing are not forcibly those that seemed obvious at first sight.  The prominence of the productivity factor is obvious.

However, one still has to build a business case around that and try and estimate how much productivity can be derived from the usage of this ICT tool, and what impact it can have on either sales, profits, or even other business factors such as the investment of this productive time into other activities which in turn can generate either more revenue and profits or even lead to a leaner organisation.

> read on at this address on the Business Value & ICT blog

business value and ICT blog now open!

A brand new Orange Business Live blog dedicated to business value and ICT has just been made available to the worldwide community of readers and possibly contributors. A registration form will soon be made available in order to enable users to engage in passionate discussions online on the subject of the impact of ICT on business.

the business value & ICT blog

This blog is about creating business value from ICT and provides a focal point for passionate discussions about how information and communications technology can bring actual value to your business. The blog is structured around seven topics (see bottom of the page) ranging from application performance to unifying communications. Subjects such as the impact of ICT on business, ROI calculations for communications services, and golden rules for new ICT transformation projects will be tackled. Our pool of authors will grow over time and new members are welcome to join as writers for the Orange Business Live blog.

read on at this address

ROI study sheds light on web conferencing business business benefits (1)

it’s not just GREEN IT …

It’s not just with Green IT that ROI calculations are a must. Conferencing is very much at the centre of most discussions on that topic at the moment. I believe that Cisco’s much touted launch of its new telepresence system a couple of years ago has been very instrumental in putting conferencing – and video conferencing in particular – on top of the business agenda. The recent interest in environmental issues  (as in our new CO2 saving tool)  – no longer disconnected from business – has also triggered an outstanding revival in the conferencing market. Similarly, the accelerating pace of globalisation and the fact that business teams are now increasingly scattered across different regions is no longer a subject for the likes of Charles Handy (who warned us more than 13 years ago that virtual organisations were our future) but a reality that almost all knowledge employees have to live with and a potential opportunity that the most nimble of us can leverage. No doubt then that the demand for conferencing tools is rising.

• read on at this URL

Wizeoz’s Stephanie Stewart reflects on social community launch

wiseOZ community / Social media  site

Setting up one’s company is a difficult task. Stephanie Stewart wrote this very honest and straightforward report of her new social media venture entitled WiseOz. I thought that this report would be very beneficial to all our readers who are thinking of creating a new business in that department and wish to know the do’s and don’ts of such an activity.

by Stephanie Stewart, Co-Founder of iThinkWorks LLC and WISEOZ.com

This story starts like any other. Girl reads book. Girl is deeply inspired by book. Girl and boy jump head first into to the super competitive social community space. Well, I’m that girl. Now, fast forward to 10 months from when I first picked up that book and my partner and I are 90 days into the launch of our first social community.

I have for you what I learned in the first 90 days of the social community space that I must be stupid enough to share. These lessons are not intended to represent the lessons of everyone in this space. They are certainly personal to my experience and, in some cases, may be entirely unique. Regardless, these are the lessons I have gained and the observations I have made 90 days into this journey. Where some may consider it stupid to divulge such lessons (and so early on), I am sharing this with anyone and everyone that has the desire to follow their dreams into the social community space or who is already deep in it.

1. Your theme song and mantra will dramatically change
Just like every other team of entrepreneurs, my partner and I had a theme song which represented our mantra. Leading up to the launch (which was exactly 13 days late due to a million other lessons that I could write a book about) and a few weeks post-launch, we rocked to Rage Against The Machine’s “Renegades of Funk” … No matter how hard you try, you can’t stop us now! Well, days go by and the struggle to find one’s audience takes its toll on the psyche. A homemade mantra, “Breakthrough before breakdown”, keeps us going these days.

2. The guy who wrote the book will just try to sell you something
The book I read (which shall remain nameless) preached all about the emerging social community space. It taught, it inspired, it encouraged, and it even invited the reader to contact the author (who happened to be an angel investor himself) with ideas. Well, we did just that and were quickly given an offer (one could easily refuse) which was more like a consulting agreement with ridiculous fees for this and that to bring our idea to investors. This lesson was indeed the most disheartening of all.

3. Operations is the most important thing you will never have time to always be doing
My partner and I happened to pick a high maintenance concept that requires a tedious amount of day to day operational activities to continuously build and manage custom games and contests. If we’re not around, the WISEOZ.com world will fail to revolve and members will get antsy. We found very early on that operations will always come well before strategy and growth. It’s an unfortunate but true reality for a self-funded venture, as we are.

4. MySpace is a viral wasteland of marketing opportunity
Albeit tedious and primitive, MySpace marketing is a strategy or ours and many others. We set up a MySpace (and Facebook and Twitter) page for WISEOZ.com at the suggestion of some of our well-informed members. Little did we know how that trolling through the millions of MySpace pages and groups to find new members is actually a marketing strategy and not such a bad one at that. You can spend hour upon hour weeding through MySpace users based on their interests, demographics, and whatever other personal information they reveal and it will cost you nothing but time. This is a tedious but addicting activity that happens to produce the occasional new member which eventually leads to more and more new members through word of mouth. Not a bad marketing strategy if you’ve got a zero dollar budget and a good stomach for bad web pages.

5. The devil is in the minutia, and by that we mean customer service
Aside from day to day operations, we have managed to distinguish ourselves for our customer service. It was likely born from new entrepreneur syndrome (similar to new mother syndrome in that you just can’t put your new baby down) but has evolved into a sort of customer-driven customer service. Over the past 90 days, we’ve gotten to know several of our members on a personal level, their dogs, their kids, their accomplishments, their struggles, and more. We listen well and respond even better. In fact, it’s not unheard of to see us in the chat room for most of the day responding real-time to member requests for this and that special feature. Keeping our existing members satisfied and engaged comes first and foremost. No matter how cool your gadgets or fancy your widgets, your social community is only as good as your least satisfied member. All in all, it’s one thing to know your demographic, it’s quite another to know your members.

6. When the going gets tough, friends and family are nowhere to be found
My partner and I don’t have a huge network of friends nor do we have large families, but we do have enough to potentially offer a vast amount of support. Unfortunately, that has not been the case in our case. We have members from Seattle to Australia that will talk the WISEOZ talk and walk the WISEOZ walk completely unsolicited but we don’t have a single family or friend that will take the time to join our community and show their support. This might be a more personal experience, and I might be struck by lightning when I walk out the front door this morning, but it is true nonetheless and may be true for others in a similar position. It’s an odd phenomenon that the people closest to you can sometimes be your worst supporters.

7. Signs do occur but you’ll never quite understand what they really mean
My partner and I were ecstatic when FairyGodMom, our first paying member arrived just 2 weeks into launch. She didn’t bring with her dancing mice or a pumpkin coach, but she arrived nonetheless. Then, just over 2 months into launch, lightning struck my home (where else do you put your data center when you’re self-funded) and took out our connection to the world. The site was down for about 20 hours, members were in a panic, and we were trying to read the signs. We are still trying to read the signs.

8. Not every click is created equal
Within the first few weeks of launch, we gave Google AdWords a freshman try. In some cases, we paid upwards of $10 for a single click. On a $10 daily budget, it’s disappointing when one click produces nothing more than a bruise to your bounce rate. Shortly after, we stopped Google AdWords and found that our bounce rate dropped from a whopping 60% down to a respectable 15%. With paid advertising out of the question, we’ve resorted to a heavy dependence on word of mouth and homegrown viral marketing techniques. It’s a slow climb but forward progress is being made every day.

9. This business of social communities is not so social at all
Call us naïve but right out the gate we went looking for a mentor. It seemed the right thing to do at the time. We learned about other sites our members frequented and pursued relationships with them. We saw synergies all around us (maybe those were stars in our eyes) and know the market is big enough and broad enough to allow for such synergies. Unfortunately, we quickly found that those with investors run the furthest and farthest, the fastest. We have yet to find a competitor that is self-confident enough to consider a mutually beneficial or mentoring relationship. This is the part of the social community space that isn’t quite so social at all. In the end, site statistics will tell you you’re small but it’s your competitors that will make you feel that much more tiny and insignificant.

My partner and I carry these lessons forward into our next 90 days in the social community space with heavy hearts, thicker skin, and blood shot eyes. For those that find themselves dealing with similar circumstances, we hope we’ve offered you some insights that may assist you on your venture or maybe in comparison you’re doing much better and my article made you finally realize that.

Stephanie Stewart is the co-founder of iThinkWorks LLC, a start-up that identifies and develops products and services focused in and around online social communities. WISEOZ.com is iThinkWorks’ first social community project. WISEOZ.com is a free contest-based and interest-oriented community where members win prizes, participate, socialize, and connect through play-as-you-please games (“WiseWits”), interest-based social networks (“Circles of Interest”), and establishment of an online identity (“My Ego”). You can e-mail her at stephs@ithinkworks.com.

community marketing (part one): UGC is part of the Internet DNA

Rejoice ye visionary readers, rejoice!  The tide of marketing is turning at last.  After more than 13 years of battling against autistic — and largely inefficient — old world marketing techniques and visions, we are now witnessing a few cracks in the ice of top-down marketing strategy.  Firstly, Regis Mc Kenna and Geoffrey Moore introduced new ways of dealing with clients mainly in the IT world at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s.  The approach was no longer demographic but behavioural.  Secondly, European researchers Badot & Cova wrote their ground-breaking opus entitled “neo-marketing[Fr]” in 1992 (many were to follow) introducing so-called “societal” approaches to marketing and even suggesting we use the term “societing [En]” instead of marketing.  (Wasn’t that visionary?  Bernard Cova now teaches mostly at the prestigious Bocconi school in Milan, and I’ve also had the pleasure of becoming friends with him in the meantime).

The end of the 1990s were the founding years of — not only of the Internet but — the revision of marketing as we know it.  Seth Godin taught us that ideas are viruses — and so are products and services — hence the newer and more pervasive notions of Buzz marketing.  He also re-educated us (yes, I insist, really re-educated) in order to ask permission from our clients to do business with them.  Not only was that the early sign that e-mail marketing had to be done differently, but it also sent a clear warning sign to mass marketers that business habits had to change in view of evolving consumer behaviours.  1999 was the kick-off year for the much revered Clue-train manifesto, a source which is still quoted today as the reference for online marketing.  And more recently, Tara Hunt has developed and notion of Pinko marketing, a rather weird and politically orientated way of putting that communication power is handed over to the people. Yet, this is very effective when it comes to getting the message across.  Even more recently, François Laurent published a new book entitled marketing 2.0[Fr].  Marketing 2.0 is in fact the sequel to his influential blog: marketing is dead[Fr], but what is really striking is that François — a former marketer at European ex-consumer electronics manufacturer Thomson — is more widely known as the president of one of the two French associations of marketing, Adetem.  Lastly Alain Thys is adding to the bargain by expostulating in his excellent marketing accountability presentation that marketing is not only dead but that it committed suicide in front of its shareholders, clients and even the earth!  Nothing less.

No doubt this time, things are moving ahead, even though the proportion of UGC is still low, there is an underlying trend of change, and this is not coming back to what it was before. So as it is becoming more and more obvious to all that markets really are conversations there is this requirement for a growng number of enterprises to quickly be in sync with this evolution and gear up to community marketing

And then there is Forrester research VP and Principal Analyst Laura Ramos, with whom I had the benefit of being acquainted a few days ago, as we were exchanging on the subject.  In May 2007, Laura (see links to some of the most recent and most relevant articles) had a story entitled: “B2B marketers fail the community marketing test“.  Her conclusions are clear-cut and uncompromising.  To sum them up in a few words:

1. marketing needs to change in the light of evolving behaviour and rising power of clients (is not only consumers guys, we are talking b2b here!)
2. top-down and patronising, self-centred, at marketing messages and must be adapted to reflect these changes.  A new tone of voice must be adopted.
3. current marketers are doing a pretty bad job at tying the knot with their clients and — to put it in the words of the blue train manifesto — engaging in conversations with them.

take part in collaborative marketing contest and win prizes

You’ve only got 3 days left but I guess some of you may have a go at it anyway. These guys from Moonjee are offering cash prizes if you take part in their collaborative marketing experience and help him with their new venture. Take your chances and good luck!

IDEA CONTEST: How can Moonjee be launched to thousands of users as an engaging web application that transforms photos in fun and useful ways?

Win cash prizes up to $150. Contest Ends July 3, 2008.

Watch this video of Moonjee and generate ideas on the following questions:

a) How can Moonjee gain thousands of users by marketing online?
b) What are some cool or creative ways for Moonjee to earn revenues?, and
c) Which new interesting features can Moonjee create for the next generation of its website?

Additional Background:
Moonjee is a web application that allows users to have fun with photos of people. Moonjee lets you change the way people look and even do an online makeover. Think about how you might you increase awareness of Moonjee, market it in different ways, and ultimately add thousands of new users and earn revenue to support future development of the site. Your creative ideas could include online marketing strategies on specific websites, video concept ideas, search engine optimization, ad revenue sources or affiliates to use, or even specific partnership ideas with other organizations or websites. In addition to marketing, which engaging features might they add to make the site more entertaining or useful for users?

Contest Rules:
Judges will select the top 5 rated brainstormers who have provided the highest number of good ideas in response to the questions. Brainstorming will be open from June 19 to July 3. Within 30 days after the contest closes BrainReactions will email the top 5 brainstormers and arrange award payment with Paypal. Top brainstormer will receive $150, 2nd place $125, 3rd place $100, 4th place $75, and 5th place $50.

• find out more at http://brainreactions.net/brainstorms/2300

2.0 is dead, long live Social Media

Social media landscape - Fredcavazza.net

Fred Cavazza, one of our most influential Gallic web experts has an interesting story in English about the fact that the 2.0 phrase – originally coined by O’Reilly in 2004 – has been oversold and is now slowly but surely replaced by another buzz word, i.e. ‘Social Media’. Sure enough, I can hear here and there that such association is being renamed… now I understand everything.

Rest assured, the web is not bound to disappear, let alone its ability to bring people together to collaborate/cooperate. This is indeed the gist of the demonstration which is part of my lecture on collaboration,  collaboration tools and their market at the Paris Graduate School of Management. And likewise, blogs will not disappear. The buzz may thin out a little, but not the aim, and not the power of words either (I hear/read here and there that video will replace the printed word, and this is really ludicrous)

At the end of the day, one may wonder whether 2.0, 3.0 and other social media concepts are not killing Aesop’s goose which laid the gloden eggs. Can’t we just go ahead and do it and forget about  the concept machine for a while? After all, reality will catch up one day, sooner or later, and good concepts and bad concepts will be sorted out by themselves.

The Web – in its entirety – and with its tendency to reinvent itself in a cyclical fashion is here to stay and it has been collaborative from day one. Other concepts may go. But do they only matter?!

• Fred Cavazza’s article on 2.0 and Social Media