The Digital Marketing Grab Bag.

Twitter Sanity Check.

Danny Flamberg, an old colleague and superstar from my Lowe Lintas days published a very sober, succinct post about what Twitter is, and is not from a “reach” and “direct marketing” point-of-view.  Much of his pragmatic perspective comes from Twitter’s ability, and/or in-ability to influence behavior and results.  Smart post that sums it up pretty quickly.

Free WSJ.com Is Good For Everyone.

Granted that when the WSJ.com tears its walls down, as they did this past Wednesday, we all had the opportunity to read the WSJ.com for free.  Great if you ask me.  This is the 2nd time they’ve done this for a sponsor and in my opinion it’s a great idea for WSJ marketing and attaches brand goodwill to the sponsor - in this case for Acura - and to WSJ.com for allowing it to happen.  Opening up the publication is also a great way for News Corp. to prove this publication is worth paying for within a Web 3.o world of free content and pervasive micro-blogging.  I wonder how often News Corp. will allow sponsors to buy out WSJ.com?  Then again, it needs to be a surprise or else we’ll all take it for granted, same way we do NYT.com.

How Do You Know Your Social Klout?

If you have Klout, you have influence, power, a great seat at a restaurant, a key to the city, blah, blah.  How do you know if you have Klout with Twitterers (or simply many who cast aside most interpersonal experiences and instead express themselves using Twitter all day long)?  And what does this Klout bring you per se?  Actually, I think SMK (social media Klout) manifests itself in your earned ability to influence a community, or the power to incite a community to take an action, however small or large.  If you want to get an idea of your own Twitter Klout, check out Klout.com and put in your Twitter profile name and you can see your overall “Klout score” as well as a nifty graph that tells you, according to Klout’s algorithm, whether you’ve earned the status of either a “connector,” “persona,” “climber” or “casual.”  The algorithm also takes a stab at telling you a bit about those you’ve influenced and those that might be influencing you.  Since I found this site this past weekend, I’m toiling away trying to bring up my score — hoping to get somewhere near aplusk’s (Ashton Kutcher) score of 90.  This is what having four older brothers that once beat the crap out of you eight days a week does to you in later life.

Rich Baker from the UK has an interview with the founder of Klout, Joe Fernandez.  Take it away Rich.

Still The Killer App.

It’s not that sexy anymore but it’s still the killer app after all this time.  Studying user data from 200 million monthly visitors across 130,000 sites, the ShareThis service has amassed a wealth of data about how people share and engage with content.  Email remains the tool of choice for that purpose, accounting for 46% of content-sharing activity compared to 33% for Facebook, 14.5% via other channels and just 6% for Twitter.

Why You Should Care About Real-Time Search.

Micro-blogging is (as many before me have said) the new collective social conscience.  But with all great new innovations come downsides.  For me, it’s wading through all of the senseless Tweets and silly one-liners that rocket through servers at millions per second and show up on my Twitter page and TweetDeck — and now within my major search engine results within Bing (although I still can’t find “Latest” within my Google search results which is their micro-blogging results tab).  But let’s not stop there — you also have Plurk, Jaiku, MSN Juku, FriendFeed and perhaps another couple of dozen that are too long to list that are also spewing out micro-blogging content into the digital atmosphere.  So what does real-time search do?  It means you can now look through gobs and gobs of digitally published content in real time, with no delay between composition and publishing (well, perhaps a few milliseconds?).  Lately several of the major search engines have incorporated real-time search features into their organic results, however not everything in terms of phrases or keywords will show up with Twitter results.  For example, right now it’s Tuesday (12/08/09) at 9:20AM and I’ve entered “Tiger Woods” into the Bing search bar and I see nothing about him from Twitter. But aside from this, what does real-time search mean to you:

1) Great: It’s a window into the RIGHT NOW world of what people are saying and thinking.  Not So Great: You need time and patience to take it all in and curate to find the pearls of wisdom or insight (if there are any).

2) Great: It’s a welcome alternative to SERP’s as micro-blog expressions are vastly different than a search engine results pages (SERP) ranking of links as these are often manipulated and search engines decide on what’s cream and give that to you first.  Not So Great: Since micro-blogging is linear, there is no cream rising to the top principle since lines are displayed according to when they were published.

3) Great: It’s the collective ethos or those brought together via digital expression by what’s happening around them or to them.  Not So Great: It’s tough to get a quick grasp of the ethos.

4) Great: It’s what mainstream media is not — it’s not filtered, not whitewashed, not censored or cleaned up in any way — it’s the good, the bad and the ugly.  Not So Great: I can’t think of any significant downside.

5) Great: For us marketers using these tools help you optimize your brand, your message and your products more quickly and with perhaps more truth than methods we’ve traditionally implemented.  You might even save a few bucks and face if you’ve launched out something really stinkey. Not So Great: The targeting we’re used to is not quite there yet, but give the developers time.

5 Ways To Stop Your Brand From Becoming A Social “Me-Too”

It’s almost 2010 and it’s bout time you improved your brand’s social strategy.  If you’re saying to yourself, we’re good in this area, then that’s great.  However, what you don’t want to be is another “me-too” social brand.  And in fact, being a “me-too” social brand is counter-intuitive because you won’t be social at all, you’ll just be irrelevant and laughed at from behind the 2nd and 3rd screens.  So here’s my quick list of how not to be another “me-too” social brand:

1) Are your micro-blogging efforts are all about you and no one else? You shout out high and loud each and everyday all of the great bargains and deals you have and provide nothing interesting to your prospects and customers?  Nothing they can use outside of buying stuff from you?  Don’t use this social channel as another way to get your message out (mono-directional).  In fact, stop shouting and start doing a little searching on your brand keywords to see what people are saying about you and try to find those customers that need your help.  Yes, I know you can’t help everyone — but you can help a few and maybe more once you understand the value of this effort.

2) Now what about your blog?  Well, better yet — what does your brand have to say that’s valuable to your constituency? You need to find this voice and then you can have a real blog presence.  Now, how often will you publish?  But wait, there’s more.  Who within your organization can produce great content chock full of the 3 E’s — content that’s enlightening, educational and entertaining?  This ain’t no nonsense — this content when properly optimized for search and consistently produced is the best thing you can be doing to get into major search engine organic results.  As well, once you do this you have something to say that’s relevant and valuable to your micro-blogging followers (and it will help you add followers).  And remember, your brand’s tweets can be found on Bing.com as the channels converge and social and social begin morphing into real-time search.

3) Does your Facebook fan page gets little love from anyone inside your organization? Sure, it has a 1,000 fans but it does little to create a meaningful connection to anyone that has subscribed?  It has little fresh content from you — the brand?  Who is lighting the fire here — discussion sparkers or anything else that wakes everyone up and reminds them that your brand is alive, has a point of view and positive associations, and has some helpful advice as well.

4) Did someone say email is for dinosaurs? Well, if you’re just graduating college you may only use your email account for subscribing to social sites and MyZappos, but remember this is the 1st social app and a killer one it still is.  How are you using this channel?  Again, are you blasting out your recent offers to your list — which is the same as saying I really don’t care much about your needs — but please buy my stuff. Well, you need to give back a bit and provide your customers subscribing to your email list something that serves them well, helps them make better decisions or teaches them something new and asks for nothing in return other than to notice that these great and useful tid-bits came from yours truly, your brand.  Now your brand stands for something good.  Are you starting to sense there’s a theme growing in this post?

5) Does your brand provide a place for people to help each other? I know what you’re saying, this is quite a huge undertaking.  Well, not really — you can start small and scale up.  Providers such as Jive can help you out with this, but again, you need the right folks creating relevant discussion categories and eliciting community membership (using your email lists to get this going might be worthwhile and be a welcome offering for your customers and subscribers).  Simply said, let your customers help themselves and each other — but you need to provide the platform.  And when you do, your brand gets all the credit.

Easier said than done?  No doubt, and I agree.  I don’t need to tell you that you can’t build out and improve everything said above right away.  None the less, start small and measure, measure, measure.  And when you have some impressive numbers to flaunt, then you’ll have some ammo to get a few more bucks to start improving the other social tactics.  If you can only improve or build brick-by-brick, it’s better than doing nothing.

Is Google Search Getting Worried?

Google has decided to rethink the U.I. of  the Options feature on their search results pages.  In fact, there’s a number of large and small modifications being tossed around - from bursting button colors to integrating the search button within the search field.  However, the big change is the functionality and appearance of the left-hand navigation strip.  When you compare the drafts of what Google proposes, one has to wonder if these improvements (scheduled to roll-out in January) are prompted by Microsoft Bing’s ever increasing presence and prominence within the major search engine landscape?  And more to the point - the left hand nav of Bing’s SERP is less dense than Google, although the category tabs in light grey are tough to read at first glance.  None the less, the usability change is good and reaffirms my faith in Google as an organization firmly rooted in continuous improvement.  I’m sure these improvements are part of a larger plan, but I would think that Bing has the folks at Google search on edge every time they hear that Bing’s search share has increased (again).

How Can Digital Brands Show Traditional Values?

According to Forrester Research “trustworthy, helpful and relevant” are top brand attributes.  The next tier of attributes comprises “value, fun, and quality.”  And there’s also a third tier of attributes — things like prestige, authenticity, and “cares about the customer.”  But how do you as a brand manager translate these attributes into a great brand-building, customer-winning, yet business valuable digital destination?  Let’s look at the top attributes and some of what you need to think about to address each of the attributes:

Trustworthy - Do you have an up-to-date privacy policy or notice or perhaps a Customer Bill of Rights? Are you thinking of new ways to show transparency?  Do you feature visitor reviews and comments of your products and services, or do you refrain out of fear of possible negativity?  It won’t go away if you don’t embrace it, and it might not go away if you do.  Having a social strategy component plan will definitely help you gain points here.

Helpful - How do you offer to help your visitors and customers?  Do you have a black hole contact form that asks for 20 fields of information without promising what the customer will receive in return and when they will receive their reply?  How many various contact devices do you feature?  If you only feature a phone number and a contact form you need to seriously rethink your contact strategy — no ifs, ands or butts.  Also, how easy do you make it for visitors to find what they need via navigation or perhaps to retain or share information found on your website?  Would it be easier if you had better systems and technology in place?  If you can’t get the money to upgrade to launch a better experience, then your organization is under-valuing their digital channels.

Relevant - Do you publish interesting and up-to-date content that you know your customers want to learn more about?  Do you have critical gaps in your offerings and services?  Are you not prominently featuring all of your offerings on your website?

Quality & Value - This one needs little introduction.  How are you showcasing value?  What specials, discounts, loyalty programs, built-in service, value-adds and two-fers do you feature, and how often?  How well do you talk about your quality, features, organizational strength and coverage and overall value proposition?  How do you show or talk about value on your website, within your emails or newletters, or on your group page in Facebook?

Cares About Customer - This is quite simple when you think about it.  How do you show you care about YOUR customers?  Do you monitor the social landscape for brand sentiment and customer frustration — especially within the micro-blogging universe (not just Twitter!).  And let’s revisit “helpful” again while we’re at it (#2 in our list here).  And one more — do you know how usable your website is?  Do you know where your visitors are getting frustrated because they can’t find what they want?  Do they abandon transactions or forms because the pages or forms ask for too much information in relation to what the visitor receives?  If your not on this, you are severely limited the ROI of you web destination.

We’ve only scratched the surface of how to fill your brand gas-tank with more online equity, but you get the point.  Be a good-egg and go through each of these and make sure you have a thorough strategy and work plan for improvement.  It WILL pay off!

What A Google Operating System Means To You.

The much anticipated new Google Operating System is slated to launch within a week.  Is this good news or bad news?  That depends on who you are and who you’re working with.  None the less, my opinion is, for those of you not within Google’s competitive landscape, it could be good news.  Here’s what’s known at this time, plus my own fifty-cents:

1) PROMISED BY GOOGLE: Their OS will get you up and running in a few seconds.

2) MY PREDICTION: Their OS will get you up and running in less time than Windows Vista (if you have no experience with Windows Vista, keep it that way).

3) PROMISED BY GOOGLE: The OS will be free (continuing the legacy of the Google brand).  Windows costs roughly $45 per installed machine as charged to OEM’s.

4) MY PREDICTION: Microsoft will respond (eventually) with a free OS to OEM’s as a result of competitive pressure.  However, this free OS will have a slew of upsells to increased functionality - which means Microsoft will charge PC users a fee for several tiers of enhanced OS versions.  But in the short run, and as analysts predict, many will stick with what they know, which is Windows.  However, the caveat to this - if the Google OS is fantastic, it will spread like a 2012 wildfire throughout social networks until it becomes a household discussion, similar to one my wife and I have about what garbage Window’s Vista is.  The amount of software that will become available for this OS will become quite abundant and much of it free, with the higher functionality versions requiring a fee based subscription, or it could be used to upsell users to another category of mission critical software provided by the developer.  And naturally for those of you with Android phones, the application compatibility of the Google PC OS will be huge - and that’s the golden egg as we move more rapidly to mobile computing, which carries with it mobile commerce, which will also be tied to social commerce.  I’m exciting about this, and hope Google really thinks this one through.  We shall see.

Don’t Want Your Picture Identified, Brace Yourself.

A new photo tagging app will become more widely available today on Facebook.  For those of you who go to great lengths to keep your pictures or those of your kids from being identified and more importantly, name-tagged, well the challenge has just become one giant step tougher.  The new Facebookapp uses facial recognition technology to make name-tagging photos on Facebook easier and faster.  So far 35,000 people have tried it and since photo sharing is one of the most popular activities across the digital spectrum for young and old, if you’re name tagged in a lot of shots, well you’re going to come up a lot more often in photo results in search engines.  And for some of you, more crazies knocking on your door.  I’m not a liberal, but we just might need a little more regulation here.