Getting the most out of digital agency relationships

(An edited version of this post first appeared on www.aprais.com.

Aprais is a global business relationship management consultancy.)

For most people working in marketing, the ideal client/ agency relationship is a healthy one, based on mutual respect and perceived equality: i.e. a true partnership. However we all know "all good things must come to an end" and with agency-client relationships, this sometimes happens prematurely.

So what about digital? Well because digital is still relatively new, and fast-changing, the picture is fragmented. And because digital is growing so fast in terms of share of marketing budgets, there seems to be plenty of digital business to go around and Marketing Directors have a wide choice of agency partners to help them plan and implement their digital marketing activity. There is certainly a role for the full-service digital agency, for the specialist digital agency (design and build, search, viral, social media or mobile) and also for the ad agency which has 'strategically embraced digital' and/ or 'placed digital at the heart of its culture' (choose your preferred form of words).

Most digital agencies work on a project basis which sometimes causes them frustrations, not least because this can disincentivise them to think outside the confines of the current brief (likely to be subject to tight time and budget constraints). Moreover, many clients still seem to believe they haven't seen a creative idea until they see a TV idea.
What are the most common reasons digital agencies lose their clients?

• Overselling: because there are often technical and jargon barriers, digital agencies often ask their clients to "trust us, this will be fantastic." This works once or twice before the CMO is called in by the CFO to discuss ROI (is that enough acronyms?). Indeed I anticipate an imminent backlash from the Boardroom against much current social media activity which may be producing 'engagement' but no attributable sales.

• Massive error (=catastrophic mistake): rarer than might be expected; most digital agencies are staffed by experienced professionals and have systems in place for checking work which minimises the chance of this sort of thing happening; however, once in a while, the agency CEO (in an unguarded moment) might say the wrong thing to a journalist, or an intern might accidentally be let loose on the Twitter stream or allowed to put a film up on the company YouTube channel......

• Personality clash (e.g. new Marketing Director): always possible in cases where the new senior client didn't appoint the agency in the first place. Equally, over a period of time people can simply get on each other's nerves. It may be that the agency can shuffle the team, unless the problem is with the Creative Director say, in which case he or she might agree to adopt a lower profile on the account...

• 'Irredeemable breakdown of the relationship'. ("They wouldn't work with the ad agency; they just don't understand our business" or "They just don't get digital; they kept moving the goalposts; they never really knew what they wanted"...)

In my experience, the most common avoidable reason for client/ agent relationship breakdown is suboptimal communication from both parties, specifically the lack of a formalised mechanism for identifying and addressing problems/ issues while there is still an opportunity to fix them i.e. long before they become terminal. Some of the above is common to all types of agencies' relationships with their clients. Specifically, I suggest that clients might remember that good ideas can come from anywhere, including the digital guys. If you involve them earlier - when the strategy is being formulated - you may get more value out of them.

As for digital agencies; many would benefit from being (a) less obviously thrilled by their own technology, (b) closer to their client's typical customer and (c) more confident to go their clients with demystified, jargon-free business-building initiatives and big multi-channel creative ideas - not just cool techie stuff that works as a bolt-on to the ad campaign. Only then can they expect to be treated as top-table strategic partners. A few digital agencies have already started this process. Along with some of their 'ad' agency fellows, they will make up the top-tier of integrated communications agencies of the future, by which time 'digital' is likely to be about as cutting-edge a term as 'The Information Superhighway', 'CompuServe' or 'Netscape'...

Online video: it's going to be HUGE…

This post first appeared on:
Digital Minds from the CAM Foundation 

As Fairfax Cone, one of the founders of US advertising agency Foote, Cone and Belding (today Draftfcb) observed in 1940, “Advertising is what you do when you can’t be there in person”. Historically, posters and press ads ‘ambushed’ people while they were going about their daily business and offered them something attractive, useful and/or enjoyable – something to make their life better. This was called Advertising and, as we know, a whole industry grew up around it.

Then radio was invented and soon it became possible for companies to add commercial messages to radio broadcasts.  As usual the US was first (“It’s the top of the ninth and the bases are loaded here at the Yankee Stadium but now here’s a word from our Sponsor!”) and other markets including the UK followed later. Then came TV – what an advance! The golden age of creative ad agencies (the ‘Mad Men’ of 1960s New York and London) exploded as this exciting new medium took off. So what was so good about TV for brand owners? In a nutshell: moving colour pictures with sound; truly the next best thing to putting a salesman in front of each consumer, as Mr Cone observed.

But this medium was one-way: effectively the marketer was guessing where the target audience was and shouting at them. Today we have something even better: TV ads the user can interact with. Online video advertising, whether ‘in-stream’ (e.g. pre-, mid-, or post-roll – eg. around a YouTube video) or contained within banner ads (either standard display ads or rich media) combines the best of the old interruptive TV Commercials (e.g. “Beanz Meanz Heinz”, “Mild Green Fairy Liquid”, “Have a Break – Have a Kit-Kat”) with the interactivity of the internet. The user can ‘mouse over’ to expand the banner, click the button to add sound, play the video and click to go to the advertiser’s site. S/he can enter name and email to request a quote, browse a microsite or simply sit back and enjoy a video – immersed in the ‘brand experience’. Each user will be in a different stage of awareness of/ attitude to the brand and specifically in a different point in their web session and the advertiser wants them to have an appropriate brand experience without being irritated. More than ever before, well-planned and implemented online video advertising (OVA) makes this a realistic proposition. Even better, provided privacy concerns can be addressed, the emerging discipline of Behavioural Targeting offers the tantalising possibility of serving these powerful ads only to those most likely to be influenced positively by them; the media planner’s holy grail.

Instead of segmenting by ‘traditional’ and ‘digital’ marketing, we can consider ‘broadcast’ and ‘online’ as two types of video advertising. And we know the power of video. No wonder OVA is growing fast. As connection speeds increase and the ‘always-on mobile web’ becomes a reality (via mobile, tablet, laptop or PC), as static banners merge with the wallpaper and their click-through rates plunge, OVA offers advertisers the opportunity to combine the power of TV with the targeting and interactivity that Direct Marketers have been dreaming of for years; TV ads at your fingertips; instant response capability; the right message to the right person at the right time. OVA will keep growing as Marketing Departments appreciate how much it can do for their brands and their sales. If Paid Search is a direct response medium, OVA is a branding medium with the built-in option to start a dialogue with the brand; truly ‘brand response’ advertising.

So: while we still can’t be there in person, the new online video advertising might just be the (very) next best thing…

End of the Hippie Dream: did business break The Web?

 
Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a scientist and something of an idealist. Oh yes: and he invented The World Wide Web. I wonder what it says in his passport under ‘Occupation’…

In my book that's about as cool as having been in The Beatles. However I'm certain Sir Tim is worth less than Sir Paul (even without an expensive ex-wife). You see he has deliberately chosen not to exploit his invention for personal gain. Which (many would say) is also pretty cool.

When Mr B-L was working at CERN in 1989-90 he wrote a paper helpfully entitled ‘Information Management - a proposal’ which contained the breakthrough idea of combining the internet (a networked collection of computers scattered across the world) with the hypertext link; allowing one computer to directly (and simply) access information on another. He wrote his initial proposal in March 1989, and in 1990, with the help of Robert Cailliau, produced a revision which was accepted by his then manager, Mike Sendall. The first 'Web Site' was built at CERN, was put on line on 6 August 1991 and the rest is history.

The vision embraced by TB-L, following the vision of earlier internet evangelists including John Perry Barlow, lyricist of The Grateful Dead (and if they weren't hippies then who was?) was of a great leveller; an empowering tool that allowed anyone to be a publisher, a record company or a bank. Almost at a stroke, the power to distribute information was taken out of the hands of the privileged few and handed to the many. This change has been described as the biggest transformation of society since the Gutenberg Bible, printed by Johannes Gutenberg circa 1455 and heralding the arrival of the Printing Press (btw why does no-one ever credit William Caxton these days?)

However in recent years, Sir Tim and other early web pioneers have expressed concerns about the way business has colonized the web and also about growing threats to our individual privacy posed by the sheer amount of personal information held by Google, Facebook, Amazon et al.

“We've noticed that people who browsed X..”

pleaserobme.com highlights the very real issue of how people thoughtlessly give away too much personal information online - especially on social networks.

But this doesn’t mean the web's become 'evil'. Sure, bad things happen online but generally they are caused by bad people. To blame the web is tantamount to shooting the messenger.  Yes terrorist groups have used email to organise, but so have disaster relief agencies. For all its faults, there has never been anything that has so enabled, empowered and connected the global population; even though only c.25% of the world is currently online (remember that!). And it’s good that people are concerned. In most wired countries there is data protection legislation in place and healthy debates about privacy and 'the cost of free' .

So did business break the web? No: not yet. And we don't have to let it. The web will bring benefits to millions more people in the months, years and decades to come which should far outweigh the costs (cyber-crime, loss of privacy, internet addiction etc). Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, created a product which has made shopping a whole lot easier and more enjoyable for millions of people. Facebook has 300 million users which would make it the 'third largest country in the world' (ahead of the US). These people choose to 'talk' to each other and it's free. Mark Zuckerberg doesn't force people to connect (OK so maybe he encourages them just a bit...).

Throughout history, the founders of successful businesses have, generally speaking, made a lot of money. The web can be a force for good which includes good business and if people like Bill Gates of Microsoft make more money out of it than they need, they can always choose to give it to Charity. (But that's a whole 'nother Blog post...).

So Sir Tim: thanks for the wonderful gift you have given us; and please don't worry. We'll do our best to use it responsibly (won't we?)

Digital Marketing Training: learning from others' successes (and failures)

(This Post first appeared on the CAM Foundation Blog - http://digitalqualifications.blogspot.com)

There are times when one needs to be sure one is dealing with skilled, thoroughly-trained professionals.

A very senior and experienced Marketing Director said to me the other day: “You know Mike, the single biggest thing holding back Digital right now is the shortage of experienced, knowledgeable people who really know what they’re doing online.  I can’t hire them as employees and I don't see enough of them in my agencies. Of course, there are plenty of people with experience of design and build, SEO or paid search, but they tend to be do-ers rather than thinkers, and there is a lot of dead wood out there- at every level, from project manager to MD. And don’t even get me started on Social Media - talk about The Land of the Blind…”

Then she referred me to this video, which on one hand proved that she had a sense of humour, but on the other left me hoping that I’d never told her I was a “social media expert”.

In September last year, figures produced by the UK Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC revealed that £1.75bn was spent on online advertising in the first 6 months of 2009, which meant that online had overtaken TV as the UK’s biggest advertising medium. This was a ‘world first’ for a developed advertising market. The announcement shocked many of the ‘Old Guard’ in Marketing Departments and their ad agencies. There was no denying that Digital had arrived. TV had been the leading ad medium for almost 50 years; now online had overtaken it in ten. There were, admittedly and perhaps deservedly, some accusations of 'comparing apples with oranges' but no-one disputes that online advertising in all its forms has come a long way, in the UK and globally.

The point my client was making was that the rapid growth of Digital has left what HR people call a “skills gap”. At all levels there is a lack of experience and there is widespread concern that this is actually holding back the emergence of Digital as a serious, grown-up and respected part of the marketing mix. There is no doubt that budgets are moving from traditional media into digital channels, but for many marketing directors this is something of a voyage into the unknown; it is certainly difficult to know where to get impartial advice; everyone who appears to know about Digital seems to have an agenda; most of all, it could be argued, the big digital agencies. Mistakes are being made, opportunities missed. Cowboys (naming no names) are surviving and even prospering.

As we know, pretty much everything in Digital is measurable but this may not be as big an advantage as it sounds. Many online marketers are currently drowning in a sea of analytics: an excess of data and a shortage of actionable information. They are, all too frequently, at the mercy of the ‘Web Analytics Guru’ whose position of power is akin to that of the car mechanic dealing with the distressed and ignorant customer; sucking his teeth, shaking his head and naming an outrageous sum: “Bad news I'm afraid; your big end’s gone…” And then doing a poor job…

So how is the buyer (of digital marketing services) to find reputable, professional suppliers? Well for one thing, I suggest you should ask your agency about its policy on training its people. Granted, an organization’s involvement in professional training and qualifications doesn’t guarantee that its employees are competent, but it does show a commitment by the employer to professional development and a willingness to invest in its people and their careers.

Digital marketing is certainly growing: driven by technology and also partly by the belief that is it more measurable than other sorts of marketing so that ROI can be demonstrated. However: unless we, as a profession, can train a group of Digital Marketing professionals, there is a real danger that there will be a backlash; the CFO will turn to the Marketing Director, demanding proof of return and, if it is not forthcoming, next year’s budget may well be smaller. (“Well we tried Digital…”)

It has been suggested that ‘Digital’ as a discriminator will soon disappear as online channels are integrated into the overall marketing mix and the big ad agencies increasingly ‘get’ digital (very much as TV was rapidly integrated into Press, Poster and Radio advertising agencies in the 1960s ). The jury is still out on how quickly and to what extent this will happen, but regardless of this trend there will still be a need for skilled practitioners who understand the unique features of online display advertising, of natural and paid search and social media and how they all fit together into the marketing mix. There is already a substantial body of knowledge about Digital but it needs to be shared more effectively; training and professional qualifications can help, increasing digital expertise and understanding, both in marketing departments and in their agencies.

It is in everyone’s interest, and the interest of marketing in general, that sufficient people in the marketing profession get the right training in digital skills so that they can use these exciting new channels in the appropriate manner; as a key part of the marketing mix; alongside, not necessarily instead of, ‘traditional’ media. This means not only learning relevant craft skills / 'techie' knowledge but also gaining strategic understanding of how Digital channels can be utilized within the overall marketing mix, which of course is based on principles formulated long before the internet was invented.

Time is money of course, so you will want the highest quality, most appropriate training, tailored to your specific needs; why not resolve to send your people (and dare I suggest yourself?) on a professionally developed and delivered Digital Marketing course? For your highest fliers, consider a professional qualification; the right people will find this highly motivating and better people get better results! Don't look at training and professional development in these rapidly-evolving Digital Channels as a cost; think of it as an investment in your people and their future - i.e. the future of your organisation.

More predictions for 2010

“...and a new one just begun.”

It’s the time of the (New) Year for predictions...So, having dragged ourselves back to reality, overcoming ice, snow and seasonal hangovers, let’s jump on the bandwagon and look ahead to what we will apparently henceforth be calling “twentyten”. What will be big in technology and digital marketing this year?

Real-time Search

Google and Bing are quickly ramping up their real-time search, having licensed real-time data streams from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, et al.  But real-time search is still regarded as a niche, and not yet regularly included in the main search results page. In 2010, this is likely to change as the search engines learn for which searches it makes sense to show Tweets and other real-time updates. Real-time search will also become a form of navigation, especially on Twitter and Facebook. The key will be to combine real-time search with filters so that people are given the most relevant results (a mix of the most authoritative and the most recent information). This is far from straightforward!

Cloud computing: Online apps

There is no doubt that Google Apps and OpenOffice (from Sun Microsystems et al) are already hurting Microsoft Office. Access your documents and calendar from any internet-connected device, and collaborate in real-time with others, working on the same documents. And save money (and hard-drive space) on desktop applications.

HD takes off, Blu-ray stalls

HD TVs will continue to switch to LED backlights instead of the more traditional fluorescent lamps. This will reduce power consumption and give better contrast, since it's easy to switch LEDs on or off in those sections of the image that are light or dark.

However Blu-ray, having won the brief war against HD-DVD, might find it controls a shrinking market as downloadable video (e.g. via iTunes or Amazon Video on Demand) booms. As shown by the success of mp3 audio and the fuzzy videos on YouTube, the highest quality format may not in fact be the ‘killer app’, especially if it comes at a premium price: we might instead see a 'good-enough revolution'.

As for the 'next big thing' we can look to 3D TV. But I predict 2010 won't be the big breakthrough year for this exciting new technology.


The Androids are coming

The Motorola Droid (Milestone in the UK) launched on October 17, 2009 running Google's 'Android' Operating System. Now the new Google-branded Android phone, Nexus One is launching into an increasingly competitive market. Other Smartphone makers Apple (iPhone) and RIM (Blackberry) as well as Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung are watching closely. Apple may be playing 'catch-up' for once. There are already more than 10,000 apps for Android. We'll be seeing more Android phones this year.

Chrome OS

Last November, Google gave us a first peek at the Chrome Operating System, expected to be released this year. Chrome OS is Google’s most direct attack on Windows so far with an OS built to run Web apps- fast. Google is also rumoured to be working on a Chrome Netbook which will demonstrate what is possible with it a “Web OS.” It may be perfect for Tablet computers also (see below).  Chrome OS is potentially highly disruptive.

Windows Azure

Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform, launches as a paid service on February 1. It’s a huge bet by Microsoft, which has built massive data centres; they will need to get developers onto the platform quickly.

Location-based services

A recurrent theme in this post is the mobile Web.  The combination of GPS chips in mobile phones, social networks, and increasingly innovative mobile apps means that geolocation is fast becoming a must-have for any mobile app.  We’ve seen social broadcasting apps like Foursquare and Gowalla.  New Geo APIs from Twitter, SimpleGeo, and possibly Facebook will change the game. Twitter has recently launched its own Geo API for Twitter apps and it has acquired Mixer Labs, which created the Geo API.


HTML5

The World Wide Web is built on HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and the newest version which has been taking shape for a while is HTML5.  Already web browsers such as Firefox and Google’s Chrome browser are HTML5-friendly. Once HTML5 takes hold, it will reduce the need for Flash or Silverlight plug-ins to view videos, animations, and other rich applications. It will make Web apps behave more like desktop apps.  A big opportunity for web agencies as their clients demand 'HTML5 inside' in 2010!


Mobile Video

Now that video cameras are integrated into the latest iPhone 3GS and other Smartphones, live video streaming apps are becoming more common, streaming both from phones and to them.  As the mobile data networks increase their 3G bandwidth and then move to true broadband with 4G (see Verizon’s new LTE network), mobile video usage will surge.

Augmented Reality (AR)

The increasing range of augmented reality apps allow us to use the camera on our smartphone to add a layer of data to reality by associating detailed information from the mobile web with the live images captured by the camera.  Expect to see lots more AR apps this year.

And now a few more speculative ideas (just for fun):

• Google faces a massive anti-trust suit (at last)
• Steve Ballmer steps down at Microsoft after 10 years as CEO
  
• Twitter stops growing; this trend is led by Stephen Fry and other celebs taking 'time-out'
• “Cash or Cell Sir?”- mobile payments start to kill plastic. (see also Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s latest start-up, Square, which will be a rival to Paypal; it allows users to accept payment via physical credit cards on a mobile device.)
• Facebook IPO (25-year-old Mark Zuckerberg would stand to become an actual $billionaire)
• Rupert Murdoch pulls all content off Google (and does a deal with Bing)

AND FINALLY, THE BIGGEST ONE OF ALL:

Tablet fest!

Yes: they’re the most anticipated products of this year: tablet computers.  We’ve seen pics of some beautiful Android ‘concept tablets’, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been showing off a Windows 7 HP tablet and, of course, there is a lot of talk of the tablet which could define the category, the Apple Tablet. Or iSlate or iTab or iPad or whatever it’s called (assuming it actually exists). Rumours include a 10 to 11-inch touch screen, a processor not from Intel but instead one designed by PA Semi (which Apple bought two years ago)and a price tag of around $1,000. Indeed if Steve Jobs doesn't have a tablet somewhere under his black mock-turtleneck jumper ready to unveil at the Apple January 26th meeting there will be widespread disappointment. Do we need yet another computer in between a laptop and an iPhone?  Yes and I’m sure Steve will explain why. The fact is that increasingly the Web is all we need (bad luck Microsoft).  As all of our apps and data and social lives move onto the Web, it may be that the Tablet will be the embodiment of the Web in device form, stripped down to basics, with an intuitive touch interface. It will also be a superior e-reader for digital books, newspapers, and magazines PLUS a portable Web TV. Disruptive or what?

Most confidently of all, I predict that several of the above won’t happen. It will certainly be an interesting year in technology and digital marketing. We hope it’s a good one. And in terms of the always-on mobile internet, I suspect the war is far from over...

The tweet smell of success: will Twitter profits soar in 2010?

Will 2009 go down as ‘The Year Of Twitter’?

The website of this ‘micro-blogging platform’ attracts over 54 million unique visitors worldwide in an average month (according to comScore estimates) and many more use Twitter via 3rd party apps. I am writing this in the ‘Twitter Capital of the World’: London, England. Instead of sorting out the traffic or the Underground (=subway) ready for the Olympics, we’re all (OK many of us) at our PCs, Macs, Netbooks and mobile devices, tweeting madly. No longer just a platform for friends to stay connected in real time, Twitter has evolved into something much bigger. Marketers are looking at it increasingly closely as it appears to offer larger and more closely targeted audiences than other media channels. The media (mainstream, tech, and yes, even bloggers) is obsessed with Twitter. It has come from nowhere and completely appropriated the Zeitgeist. The company is valued at $1 billion (WSJ). Yet only 4 years ago Twitter didn’t even exist.

Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in 2006 and its rise has been rapid. People using Twitter during the fires in California in October 2007 kept their followers (often friends and neighbours) informed of their location and those of the various fires as they spread. The American Red Cross has used Twitter to exchange minute-to-minute information about local disasters. During the 2008 Mumbai attacks,  eyewitnesses sent an estimated 80 tweets every 5 seconds. Twitter users on the ground helped compile a list of the dead and injured and users tweeted vital information eg. emergency phone numbers and the location of hospitals needing blood donations. CNN called this "the day that social media appeared to come of age". President Obama used Twitter in his Election campaign. In January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 experienced ‘multiple bird strikes’ and ditched in the Hudson River. A passenger on one of the ferries that rushed to help took a picture of the downed plane as passengers were evacuating and sent it to Twitpic before any other media even arrived at the scene. The Australian Country Fire Authority used Twitter to send out regular alerts and updates during the February 2009 Victoria bushfires. The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, used his Twitter account to tweet information on the fires, how to donate money and blood, and where to seek emergency help. This sounds like a totally new platform which is operating as a force for good (on the whole). The ex-US national security adviser Mark Pfeifle has suggested Twitter should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Twitter’s website attracted a total of 44.5 million unique visitors worldwide in June, 2009 (comScore); at this time it was involved in sharing the news about the Iran Election protests. Twitter apparently continues to show rapid growth: The site had 54.7 million unique visitors in August, whereas it had just 4.3 million in August 2008, (WSJ- comScore).The September 2009 figure was 58.4 million. There is a suggestion that US growth is starting to stall but new Twitter features may well reverse this.

After initially attracting 'geeks' and the 'web-savvy', Twitter has become mainstream with Celebrity ‘tweeters’ eg. Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears, TheEllenShow and Stephen Fry from the UK where Twitter has grown by an almost incredible 1,959% year on year (Nielsen). No wonder Twitter has just been voted 'Medium Of The Year' by Campaign magazine.

Counting Twitter.com website hits always understates total Twitter usage, as this neglects traffic on third party apps such as TweetDeck, which users access to monitor and publish tweets. TweetDeck alone accounts for an estimated 20% of all tweets. Twitter's audience, therefore, is certainly much larger.

Twitter has so far raised over US$150 million from venture capitalists. Yet apparently it continues to lose money.

Hang on; didn’t we learn from the 'Bubble' (AKA the first internet boom/ bust) that dodgy dotcoms who run up big debts on expensive technology platforms and on ‘buying’ loyal users crash horribly? Boo.com anyone?   We were never going to make those mistakes again, remember?

So what’s going on?

No-one is suggesting that the guys running Twitter are crazy. They have however been tantalisingly unforthcoming about their intentions. Their plan could be:

Either:

(a) Build up as many loyal users as possible then MONETISE. (see below)

OR b) sell the business to a wealthy older generation company (Apple? Facebook? Microsoft? Amazon?)  This depends on someone believing that they can monetise where the founders haven’t (yet) but there are plenty of examples of this not going to plan; just ask Google what is their payback forecast for YouTube which they bought in November 2006 for $1.65 billion in stock, or consider AOL’s $4.2billion acquisition of Netscape; then again there is Skype, bought by eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005. The auction giant struggled to monetise Skype and until recently even faced a lawsuit from its founders as it tried to spin off the business at a loss. (The founders now own 14% again which I believe I called ‘having your cake and eating it’?). However, since it’s Twitter, I’m sure a buyer could be found.

OR c) float (even though Tech company IPOs are currently out of fashion)

OR d) carry on as they are while they're having fun and still growing.

This raises an interesting question; when will Twitter stop growing? Has it already plateaued?.


Gartner’s 2009 Hype Cycle Report (see diagram) suggests that most new technologies/ tech companies reach a peak then hit “The Trough of Disillusionment”   (something we would all surely wish to avoid at any time in our life cycle!)

According to Jackie Fenn, VP, Emerging Trends at Gartner:

“Technologies at the Peak of Inflated Expectations during 2009 include cloud computing, e-books (such as from Amazon and Sony) and internet TV (for example, Hulu), while social software and microblogging sites (such as Twitter) have tipped over the peak and will soon experience disillusionment among corporate users.”  

Well, maybe.

Now let’s consider the ‘M’ word - monetisation.

By the way, I have a theory that this is one of those words that separates people who ‘get’ digital from those who just read/ hear about it in the mainstream (offline) media. If you can say ‘monetisation’ without smirking you are in the former group (and if you spell it with an ‘s’, either you’re British or Australian or someone’s been messing with the country settings on your spellcheck.)

The rumours regarding Twitter monetisation include:

• Selling advertising space on the Twitter site
  

(It's interesting to speculate what these ads might look like: online banners/ skyscrapers? Google AdWords-like text only? Or like tweets slotted between the ‘real’ ones?)

• Partnership with other site owners

Twitter recently announced that its new ‘sign-up API’ would be live on Citysearch  (the US local online guide)   This is significant because it could point the way to another monetisation strand.

• Paid-for Premium Accounts

For an indication of Twitter’s plans, let’s look East: Twitter Japan has acted like a ‘testbed’ for the company and operates differently from Twitter in other countries eg. its launch of a video-sharing service.Twitter Japan already allows ads on each page (a feature not yet allowed on the site in any other country).

It is understood to be introducing ‘a tiered payment model that will charge audiences to view tweets from premium Twitter accounts’ (Media Asia).

Kenichi Sugi (Twitter’s man in Japan), announced the changes at the Mobidec2009 conference earlier this year. He said that Twitter would be adding paid subscription options early in 2010 – which would allow business account holders to charge audiences for access to their tweets, links to external websites and images.

Users who want to pay for full access to these premium accounts’ tweets can do so via a monthly subscription model using a credit card or have their mobile network include it in their monthly bill, or buy a pre-paid top up card at convenience shops. Prices will be dependent on the figures set by the charging account holders. Twitter will take 30% (tbc) of all fees generated.

Twitter’s Biz Stone and Evan Williams have talked openly about charging businesses for the commercial use of Twitter – however the idea that users will be charged to access information from such accounts surprised many Twitter watchers. Twitter accounts which deliver real-time information – such as news and original photographs – are the most likely to be able to charge users successfully. (Just ask Rupert Murdoch about the challenges of getting users to pay for content!)

At Web 2.0 in San Francisco, in September 2009, Evan Williams stated that Twitter Mobile in countries like Japan and India – was a big focus because the reach and revenue potential are huge, especially in Japan – where internet mobile penetration levels are some of the highest in the world.

Twitter has signed a major SMS deal with India’s largest mobile operator, Bharti Airtel, enabling its customers to send tweets via SMS and is in talks with mobile network operators all over the world to allow people to post and receive tweets via text message, without the need for web access. Millions of people already post tweets via SMS, use Twitter mobile or third party apps on the go; Twitter wants deals with all the major mobile phone carriers in its target territories.

In the 1989 movie Field of Dreams, Shoeless Joe said: “ If you build it, he will come "  (often misquoted as ‘they will come’ which would be much more appropriate). When applied to websites, we know this 'ain’t necessarily so'. But Twitter has built it, and they’ve come all right - in their millions. Many of us, to varying degrees, are addicted to Twitter. It is a true game-changer. In social media, in marketing and more generally. If we suddenly had to pay for some of it, for ‘special’ attractive content, or for new, exciting, ‘premium’ features, many of us would. Sure: much of Twitter is trivia of interest only to a very few (“Hard-boiled egg for breakfast, yum!”, “Cute picture of my poodle Fifi”, “OMG started raining in Manchester- again!”) but these conversations are between real people talking to their friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances about their lives. The audiences Twitter potentially offers are very attractive to marketers; especially if they can be packaged in a way that is easy to segment, target and buy.

This has been the year Twitter took off; perhaps next year will see the start of pay-back. The guys at Twitter are smart. Several ‘people who know’ think this is going to be a famous case history: Twitter will monetise and soon. Then we’ll all be saying we knew they’d make it all along. What is indisputable is that things are moving fast in Twitter HQ in San Francisco and there’s much more to come. Maybe 2010 will be the Year of Twitter…

(Oh and please follow me on Twitter  )

How was it for you? The joy of UX

Google is planning and currently beta testing some design/ layout changes, both on the Home page and the Search Results page to include a new left-hand navigation pane. Google is known for making such changes very rarely and when it does, for researching them very painstakingly. Which raises the question: isn't agonizing about miniscule changes in logos, column width and colours all a bit unnecessary? After all, Google has a strong brand and isn’t it the reliability of its search results that really matters?

Well, in a word, “No”. We’re talking about the User Experience (or UX) here (more specifically web usability) which is just as crucial for Google as for any other website. Indeed, arguably more so, since Google has such a massive volume of traffic. And as Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said “disloyalty is only one click away”. Bing and Yahoo! are ready to welcome anyone who has a sub-optimal experience and fancies a change of search engine. I would argue that the phenomenal success of the Google search engine owes much to how simple it is to use. (Indeed Google has had less success with more complex, less intuitive products: e.g. Google Radio and maybe Google Wave?)

Indeed Google search is not even particularly comprehensive. Michael K Bergman, an American academic and entrepreneur, published a paper on the ‘deep web’ in 2001 that is still regularly quoted. "The deep web is currently 400 to 550 times larger than the commonly defined world wide web," he wrote. "The deep web is the fastest growing category of new information on the internet …internet searches are searching only 0.03% … of the [total web] pages available."

Of course this isn’t the point. Google works. And the company pays a massive amount of attention to UX. Their team of UX experts, headed by Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience, goes to great lengths to keep the Google search experience in tune with users' changing wants and needs, including what they see on their screen and how they interact with it. I believe this has played a big part in the Google search engine's rise to dominance. Granted, most people find it gives acceptable results but most of all, it is quick and easy to use. Most searchers find what they want fast i.e. they get a good experience. Google wisely adjusts the user interface with great care and only after careful consideration.

The world-renowned UX Guru Jakob Nielsen has said “People are on the Web not to enjoy your Web design, but to get something done.” Not surprisingly, he has been strongly criticized by the design community for downplaying the importance of aesthetics, particularly in situations where the creator of the web content is seeking to persuade, influence or entertain rather than purely facilitating. Few would disagree with the argument that different factors come into play when one considers the optimum UX in browsing a particular area of an online store to find suitable gift ideas, compared with what is required at the checkout. Similarly compare an online photo gallery with an online banking site. The need, of course, is to understand the user and their requirements at the time they are using each part of the site; this is UX (web usability) research and design: a fascinating meeting of technology and human psychology.

UX has become big business and rightly so. There are now companies who specialize in 'eye tracking' to optimize website usability. To ensure a site is accessible and easy to use, they look at the site through the user’s eyes - literally. Under laboratory conditions, site owners can observe directly where the user looks for information, what elements are missed, and where the user is confused. 'Point-of-gaze' metrics combined with 'measures of mental effort' can highlight key usability areas that need attention. We can study how users click and where they look and in what sequence. Granted, we don't know exactly what they're thinking and feeling (yet) but it's a good start in our mission to deliver the best possible UX.

Site owners are continuously competing against distractions (including ads and other websites) in their attempts to engage and hold the attention of the user. The slightest irritation or unwelcome surprise can produce frustration and cause the user to click away/ leave the site. Improved web design has raised the bar compared with the ‘brochure sites’ of 10 years ago. Today’s users expect good usability. They are not, in general, fascinated and impressed by website design or Flash animation. They are demanding and impatient. Thus sites should be designed and tested for speed of loading and ease of navigation on equipment and with connection speeds typically experienced by the site’s core user group (a factor which the design and build agency, with its high-end machines, has been known to neglect!).

Given ‘Content is King’, one can commit regicide by neglecting UX considerations. Yet even in these days of widespread broadband, the user doesn’t always experience a freely flowing interaction. There are far too many sites with good content that are unnecessarily frustrating to use. And too many major companies that (re)launch websites without adequate testing. Why would they do that?

Smart companies understand the importance of UX and devote appropriate time and resources to optimizing their user’s interaction (a) with their site and (b) looking at the bigger picture (including all touchpoints) with their brand. Apple certainly knows a thing or two about Total User Experience design, as demonstrated by the attention it pays to packaging, materials and colours as key elements of product design.

I'm not sure exactly when we’ll all get to use the new Google interface. But when we do, I'm sure it will be a good experience.

Social Media: What? We can’t measure it?

In the fast-changing world of digital marketing, one has to keep up-to-date. I recently attended a digital industry trade show/ conference: I met my client as arranged, we did some business and we said goodbye. I then walked round the stands looking for anything new and interesting. The ‘usual suspects’ were in evidence. There were various ladies with lots of make-up, wearing shorts and high heels, walking round in pairs giving out bits of paper (at a digital marketing event?) and smiling with as much sincerity as they could muster. There were the ‘mobile masseuses’ accosting bemused delegates as they staggered around with carrier-bags laden with bumph. A truly horrible cup of expensive coffee, then on to mingle with the massed ‘digerati’ at the free seminars.

Interestingly, the lengths of the queues varied: notwithstanding any bias in the show attendees, I suggest this was a good barometer of which topics within digital marketing are ‘hot’ right now. The approximate pecking order (in ascending order of popularity) was:

Affiliate Marketing
eCRM
Email Marketing
Web Analytics
Paid Search
Viral
SEO
Google AdWords basics
Social Media/ Online PR

In other words, if you wanted to hear an internationally-renowned, cutting-edge Affiliate Marketing Guru explaining his/ her craft, you were welcomed with open arms by the lady scanning your badge and ushered with a friendly smile to one of the best seats, whereas for “How smart marketers tweet - 49 Twitter secrets” (or something) they were queuing round the block for an hour beforehand (and even then many delegates were turned away with a different sort of smile and the suggestion they might "watch the presentation online" instead).

Social Media is certainly ‘hot’ right now. More and more consumers and business decision makers are spending more and more time on social networks (via Desktop PC, Mac, Laptop, Netbook or mobile device). For brands, it is undoubtedly possible to use Social Media to engage people in a very powerful way. For brand owners keen to dip their toes in the water, there is plenty of advice around. However: currently only a few of the self-proclaimed Social Media ‘experts’ appear to truly understand Social Media Marketing and even some of them are bluffing. These are still early days.

Suppose we open our favourite search engine and search for: “Social Media training courses”. We get a lot of sites (and even more courses) to choose from.

Bing: 29,200,000 results
Yahoo!: 36,900,000 results
Google: 86,100,000 results

So Social Media is what everyone wants to know about currently. Let’s have a look at what we mean by it, why marketers (and others) are so interested and how brands can participate successfully.

What is (are?) Social Media?

"Social Media are distinct from industrial media, such as newspapers, television, and film." Wikipedia

(but who ever heard of 'Industrial Media'? And if it exists, can we make money out of it?)

The use of the term 'Social Media' has risen steadily over the last couple of years. From a slow start, it has gathered momentum and now suddenly it's everywhere.

Social networks like Facebook or MySpace are online ‘places’ where people with common interests or concerns come together to meet similar people, to network, express themselves and share their thoughts. Brand owners can use social networks to understand what people are saying about their brand and to start a dialogue, a conversation with current and prospective customers.

Who are the players?

-MySpace

Launched in 2003 by a group of eUniverse employees including Brad Greenspan (eUniverse's Founder, Chairman, CEO), who managed Chris DeWolfe (MySpace's starting CEO), Josh Berman, Tom Anderson (MySpace's starting president), and a team of programmers and resources provided by eUniverse. MySpace was the first true social network and grew rapidly; the parent eUniverse was acquired in July 2005 for US$580 million by Rupert Murdoch's Fox Interactive Media, part of News Corporation. Of this amount, approximately US$327 million has been attributed to the value of MySpace. MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the US in June 2006.The 100 millionth account was created on August 9, 2006. According to comScore, MySpace was overtaken internationally by main competitor Facebook in April 2008, based on monthly unique visitors.Today,  MySpace employs 1,000 employees, after laying off 30% of its workforce in June 2009.

MySpace would appear to be in decline, possibly terminal.

-Bebo

Bebo, allegedly an acronym for "Blog early, blog often" is a social networking website, founded in January 2005. It is popular in many countries including Ireland, Canada, the United States, the UK, New Zealand and Australia. A Polish version was launched recently and there are plans for French, German and other versions. Founded by husband and wife Michael and Xochi Birch, Bebo had a major relaunch in July 2005 . It was bought by AOL in March 2008 for $850m (£417m). This now looks like a lot of money as Facebook and other networks continue to take users from Bebo….

-YouTube

YouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos. Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and is now operated as a subsidiary of Google. The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS and the BBC, offer some of their content via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.There are also 'official' brand-owned channels, where TV commercials and brand-related films can be viewed.

-Facebook

If MySpace has lost its 'Mojo', Facebook has grabbed it.

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004 with his Harvard University college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.Facebook recently claimed 250million active users (out of 300million registered users) with over 120million of these visiting the site at least once per day.The free-access social network lets people connect with their friends, post photos and videos, share links, plan events and learn more about the people they meet. Although Facebook started as purely a ‘social’ network, for brands, there are now opportunities to recruit and talk to users (='fans').These pages can be public and therefore 'crawlable'.

Facebook dominates Social Media (especially in the US and UK) and it continues to grow. Facebook accounts for 74% of all time spent by UK users on social networks (Nielsen, November 2009); this time itself is up 83% on 2008. It offers brands a chance to recruit fans via Facebook Pages, and also Facebook Advertising, where you can choose to pay per click (CPC) or impression (CPM).

Facebook's US monthly unique visitors grew from 92.2m in August 2009 to 95.5m unique visitors in September 2009. (comScore).

-LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals launched in May 2003. Users create a profile summarizing their professional achievements. They can then connect with former co-workers and professional contacts, adding them to their LinkedIn network. Through LinkedIn, users can search for jobs, find new business opportunities, and network to further their careers. As of October 2009, it had over than 50 million registered users in more than 200 countries.

-Flickr

Flickr is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community platform. Launched in February 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in March 2005, In addition to being a popular website for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository. In April 2008, Flickr began to allow paid subscribers to upload videos, On March 2, 2009, Flickr added the ability to upload and view HD videos, and began allowing free users to upload normal-resolution video. As of October 2009 it claims to host more than 4 billion images.

and of course

-Twitter

Twitter is the Social Media sensation of the moment. In the UK, it has grown by an unbelievable 1,959% year on year (Nielsen). It has entered the mainstream with Celebrity ‘tweeters’ including:

Ashton Kutcher (3,945,588 followers)
Britney Spears (3,725,547 followers)
TheEllenShow (3,687,260 followers)
and
Stephen Fry (970,368 followers)

Twitter is, strictly speaking, not a social media network but a micro-blogging platform that enables its users to send and read messages (or ‘tweets’); text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers (= followers). Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. The 140 character limit on message length was initially set for compatibility with SMS messaging, and has brought to the web the kind of shorthand notation and slang commonly used in SMS messages. The 140 character limit has also spurred the usage of URL shortening services such as tinyurl, bit.ly and tr.im, and content hosting services, such as Twitpic and NotePub to accommodate multimedia content and text longer than 140 characters.

Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in 2006 has gained massive popularity worldwide. Twitter’s website attracted a total of 44.5 million unique visitors worldwide in June, 2009 (comScore); at this time it was involved in sharing the news about the Iran Election protests.

It is sometimes described as the "SMS of the Internet” since the use of Twitter's application programming interface (API) for sending and receiving short text messages by other applications often eclipses the direct use of Twitter.

“What we have to do is deliver to people the best and freshest most relevant information possible. We think of Twitter as it's not a social network, but it's an information network. It tells people what they care about as it is happening in the world.” Evan Williams

Twitter is ranked as one of the 50 most popular websites worldwide by Alexa's web traffic analysis. Estimates of the number of daily users vary: Twitter does not release data on the number of active accounts.

RJMetrics has suggested:
-Twitter's user growth has plateaued
-Over 14% of users don't have a single follower, and over 75% of users have 10 or fewer followers.
-38% of users have never sent a single tweet, and over 75% of users have sent fewer than 10 tweets.
-1 in 4 registered users tweets in any given month.

Twitter received 20.9m unique visits from US users in September (ComScore) but this number should be treated with caution as the report only measures traffic pulled in by the main URL, twitter.com, neglecting traffic on third party apps such as TweetDeck, which users access to monitor and publish tweets. TweetDeck alone accounts for an estimated 20% of all tweets. Twitter's audience, therefore, is certainly much larger. In total, Twitter has raised over US$57 million from venture capitalists. It is currently unclear how and when the company plans to monetize the service.

Social networking sites sometimes unexpectedly cross borders: pioneering U.S. site Friendster, for instance, has faded dramatically at home but has found new and growing markets in Asia, while Google's Orkut is the top network in Brazil. Many of Facebook's biggest rivals around the world are local homegrown sites. With 200 million registered users, China's Qzone claims to be the world's largest social networking site, while VKontakte is far and away the No. 1 in Russia.

-VKontakte

vkontakte.ru is a social network for Russian-speakers. It looks surprisingly like Facebook! VKontakte (Russian: Вконтакте), internationally branded VK, is the most popular social network in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. As of November, 2009, the network has more than 48 million users and averages over 1.5 billion daily pageviews and 9.5m visitors per day and is the leading site in Europe. As of March 19, 2009, VKontakte was ranked 28 in Alexa's global Top 500 sites. In English "V Kontakte" is literally translated as "In Contact" or "In Touch". Major Russian companies routinely send job offers via VKontakte. Most of the site's users are university and high school students. However, as the site's popularity increases, the demographic is getting older.

-Friendster

Started in San Francisco in 2002 but now draws 90% of its traffic from Asia. It has 105 million users. The top 10 countries accessing Friendster, according to Alexa, (2009) are the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, the United States, Singapore, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and India.

-Orkut

Another free-access social networking service owned and operated by Google.. The website is named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten. Although Orkut is less popular in the United States than Facebook and MySpace, it is one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil. In fact, as of May 2009, 49.83% of Orkut's users are from Brazil, followed by India with 17.51%. Originally hosted in California, in August 2008 Google announced that Orkut would be fully managed and operated in Brazil, by Google Brazil, in the city of Belo Horizonte. This was decided due to the large Brazilian user base.

-Habbo

… is a hybrid social network and virtual world for teenagers; it combines elements of Second Life and Facebook. Some suggest the avatar-based interaction, networking in a space that feels real, using a ‘self’ that you can customize, points the way to the social networks of the future.

Back to the present: in September 2009 The top 10 UK Social Media sites measured by unique users (Nielsen) were:

1)   Facebook (22.81m)
2)   YouTube (16.25m)
3)   Wikipedia (14.20m)
4)   Blogger (7.71m)
5)   Yahoo Answers (7.28m)
6)   Twitter (4.43m)
7)   MySpace (4.16m)
8)   TripAdvisor (3.70m)
9)   BBC Communities (3.17m)
10) Bebo (3.15m)

-Blogs (=’web-logs’)

Notice that Blogger features in the list above. This is Google’s Blog platform; competitors include Wordpress, TypePad and Live Journal. Blogs are one of many internet-driven phenomena. Today, pretty much anyone can be an author and their own publisher (yes, even me!). The only ‘barriers to entry’ are basically access to a computer and an internet connection…

Technorati lists an astounding 112 million blogs in the world today, and adds, “there are over 175,000 new blogs every day. Bloggers update their blogs regularly to the tune of over 1.6 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second.” With such overwhelming numbers, clearly it is necessary to prioritize blogs in terms of their level of influence; (how many of your target audience actually read them, how many comment, interact etc) in order to assess their importance in Social Media terms and to determine which should be monitored and how closely. Truly influential bloggers merit individual contact (and account management) if at all possible, they should be cultivated, fed exclusives and generally kept ‘on-side’ (although many, like the best journalists, cannot be ‘bought’!)

What are key issues?

There are various heated debates currently going on in marketing circles about Social Media. Of course everything is changing all the time. The networks are adding new features, revamping their user interfaces, forming partnership with content owners, mobile handset manufacturers, network operators. Major structural changes are anticipated, e.g. Google moving further into Social Media, Twitter further developing real time search, and/ or selling (to Google? Facebook? Apple?), MySpace and Facebook forming an alliance etc. etc.

1) Who should be responsible for managing Social Media engagement?

This is a current and very lively debate. Part of the problem here is one of definition. All marketing disciplines and channels are interconnected: Social Media touches both online PR and SEO. Press releases can and should be keyword optimized (so that search engines can find them once they’re published on various sites); Social Media mentions (e.g. in a tweet, Facebook post or blog post) can drive site traffic and conversions, as do Pay Per Click (PPC), Online Display and offline advertising. Since SM is a high-profile growth area, lots of people want a piece of it:

a) In Brand Owner companies
There is no real consensus as to which department/s should be responsible for Social media. Candidates include:
Marketing
Corporate Communications
Customer Services
IT

?The reality is that Social Media touches all these departments, since a disgruntled customer ‘venting’ on Twitter might have a customer services issue, but could be tweeting angrily to his/ her followers which could be undoing the efforts of the Marketing and Corporate Comms people. Equally the new TV campaign might cause a ‘spike’ in brand mentions on Facebook, cut-downs tributes and parodies on YouTube and extra hits on the website.

In these pioneering days, corporations, governments and not-for-profits are coping with this issue in a variety of ways. I would personally recommend that one individual should be made responsible as the Social Media ‘Czar’, with the full support of senior management and a mandate to work across departments to ensure a ‘joined-up’ SM strategy. Good luck to this person; exciting job however!

b) Agencies
What does a ‘Social Media agency’ look like? What skill-set do they require? PR agencies certainly have a plausible claim to be the best qualified, in an online extension of their traditional role as builders and defenders of their clients’ reputations, so long as they truly ‘get’ digital. Many PR agencies have successfully reinvented themselves for the digital age. And It’s not just about pitching stories to journalists via tweets rather than Press Releases. Crisis management has long been a PR agency specialist service, and a swarm of negative tweets can these days be the first indicator of a gathering storm, as can an irreverent video appearing on YouTube. SEO agencies would appear to have a lesser claim; after all, 'traditional' SEO (organic search) is about helping Google, Bing et al to find your site, not proactively engaging consumers and participating in conversations. Difficulties arise when you consider that SEO can include activity designed to generate inbound links; a process to which Social Media can certainly contribute. Full service digital agencies, having already grabbed design and build, online display, SEO and paid search (PPC), now see Social Media (web-based and mobile) as their next growth opportunity. And of course all the 'traditional' ad agencies are now into digital(!).

For what it’s worth, I believe Social Media should be managed by a brand owner client in-house with the help and support (where needed) of an external Social Media agency. This agency might be ‘pure’ Social Media or a more integrated Digital Agency offering a blend of Paid Search, SEO and Social Media. It could be one of those PR agencies who have fully embraced digital, so that they now genuinely offer ‘online reputation management’. It could even be a traditional above-the-line ad agency who have finally caught up with digital and now have the right people in-house, including Social Media experts. Anyway: however they label themselves, they’d better understand Social Media and keep on top of it as it changes, as it inevitably will.

2) Resourcing

However Social Media Marketing is to be managed, it is crucially important to allocate sufficient resource; internal or external. Indeed this is the main cost of Social Media marketing: the sheer 'person-hours' required to listen and participate effectively. It is also important to make it 100% clear how much authority the individuals involved actually have: i.e. can they make up ‘policy’ on the hoof? What must be referred ‘up the line’? And all the while recognizing that these platforms are inherently spontaneous/ immediate so that delays in replying while appropriate clearance/ sign-off is obtained don’t play particularly well.

To highlight the difficulties which brand owners face in deciding in how to empower front-line social media staff while at the same time retaining appropriate control, here are some notable Social Media PR disasters:

Domino’s Pizza (‘disgusting people’)

Ketchum/FedEx how not to use Twitter

British Furniture Retailer Habitat had some over-zealous employees manning its Twitter Account 

Dell had some problems with Social Media but ultimately made the necessary changes and is now a success story


3) How do you monitor conversations?

You can’t engage with your audiences until you know where your brand is being discussed and what people are saying about it. You need to know how to listen effectively. After all this is in effect ‘free’ market intelligence about your customers and prospects. You need to be aware of changes of ‘online sentiment’ as expressed in Social Networks (public pages only), ‘The Blogosphere’ and in Online News Media. Keeping on top of all this can be a big job. For a big, high interest global brand, there may be many millions of mentions to monitor; the requirement is for Social Media Monitoring tools which can provide a user interface or ‘Dashboard’ to enable the brand owner (or their agency) to make sense of it all for so that useful, actionable insights can be drawn from this vast mass of data. Fortunately several excellent ‘Buzz Monitoring’ tools exist: Brandwatch (which I would recommend), Spectrum and Radian6 are appropriate at enterprise level, whereas for SMEs and individuals, there are various free tools (e.g. Google Alerts, Twitter Search and Addictomatic. As Social Media itself grows, the monitoring industry is expected to continue to expand.

4) Metrics/ measurement

This is currently a massive area of debate and indeed concern. It is important to recognize that the ‘jury is still out’ as to exactly how to demonstrate ROI on Social Media. There can be no doubt that lots of positive mentions of a brand in Social Media must be driving traffic to the website (ie helping with SEO) which must be leading to an increase in sales; all this is good. The challenge is actually to quantify the value of all this positive buzz and to compare with the time and money spent to generate it, i.e. to measure Return On Investment (ROI).

“More research is needed to establish a tangible link between how many people are talking positively about brands versus the expected uplift in sales” - Econsultancy.

In a brand-owning company, the MD is likely to remark: “But you can measure everything online can’t you?” Well yes and no. We can certainly measure online behaviour (clicks, user journey, even eye-tracking on a given web page) but we can’t (yet) fully measure sentiment; how warm and/ or engaged people are really feeling towards the brand. Remember also that there are privacy issues; eg Facebook (unlike Twitter) is a closed community; only friends can monitor each other's updates and conversations. You can get excellent metrics on mentions in Blogs, Facebook (public pages), Twitter, hits on your videos on YouTube, Google/Bing/Twitter searches on your various branded keywords, generation of inbound website links etc but monitoring awareness and attitude shift, and turning this data into accurate ROI numbers is a challenge that hasn’t yet been fully met.

We need to recognize that Social Media marketing is still in its infancy. Let us remember that traditional advertisers have been struggling with this issue for more than 50 years. As Ad Agency Planning Directors have been saying since the days of the ‘Mad Men’  just because you can’t completely measure an increase in name awareness, or customer engagement or positive reputation with 100% accuracy, that doesn’t mean the activity was a waste of time and money. Note that no-one talks about ‘monetizing’ TV ad spend, although the metrics have never been 100% robust. Indeed certain traditional advertising research techniques can usefully be employed to measure the ‘awareness/ attitude shift effect’ of much Social Media activity.

Facebook and AC Nielsen have announced 'Brand Lift'  to demonstate the effect of Facebook advertising (including use of pre- and post- user surveys). Measurement Camp has been set up to develop open-source Social Media metrics. Unsurprising, we don't yet have a common currency to measure Social Media ‘engagement’. Expect big changes in this area in the coming months.

Who’s getting Social Media Marketing right?

As we have seen, the first step is diligent and intelligent monitoring of the social media ‘buzz’ around your brand which is continuously taking place on social networking and micro-blogging sites like Twitter and Facebook. The next challenge is to participate in these conversations, in order to gain positive exposure for your brand, product, or service, without ‘selling’ too hard.

Dell, Starbucks, AmericanAirlines, BMW Mini, Lenovo and Amazon (among others) are all using Social Media to spot and fix problems, getting on to complaints early, moving fast to turn detractors into advocates, joining conversations, providing information and product news and in some cases to actually sell.

And also, interestingly, politicians and governments. On Twitter, we find:

@DowningStreet,
“The official twitter channel for the UK Prime Minister's Office”
489,030 Following
1,548,053 Followers
on 2,094 Lists

@whitehouse
“Official WH twitter account. Comments and messages received through official WH pages are subject to the PRA and may be archived”
72 Following
1,428,305 Followers
on 6,095 lists

@barackobama
Location Washington, DC
Bio: 44th President of the United States”
750,808 following
2,617,634 followers
on 18,068 lists

and last but not least, 

@treatyoflisbon (European Union)
“Charter of Fundamental Rights to become law, protecting dignity, freedoms, equality, solidarity, citizens’ rights, and justice”
0 Following
211 Followers
on 7 Lists

Barack Obama’s presidential election campaign has been paraded as a classic digital marketing case history. My view is that he inspired a lot of people to give money, and a lot of people to work very hard on his behalf; he was smart enough to include Social Media and other digital marketing alongside all the traditional fundraising and vote-winning techniques. Scott Goodstein was the Campaign Social Media mastermind and has given interesting interviews/ speeches about his role in the campaign which employed MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. (If the election were today, then no doubt Twitter would feature more prominently). President (then Senator) Obama announced the choice of Joe Biden as his running mate simultaneously by text, email and on Twitter.

Indeed politicians and governments all over the world are getting wise to the need to engage with their electorate, their citizens, via Social Media and the many advantages this can bring. Social networks are not only for making friends…

“Last year YouTube received 11 million unique users from the UK and more than 35 million Britons visited a blog. People are using digital channels to talk to each other and to the Government. The Downing Street Twitter account is followed by more than 1.2 million people, more than the official White House Twitter and considerably more than the daily circulation on most national newspapers. It is vital that the Government understands the medium and uses it properly. If people want to engage with us online, we should be capable of engaging with them online.”

(UK Cabinet Office, September 2009)

What about the future?

Social Media will be interconnected. Today, online social interaction is imperfect and disjointed because consumers have separate identities in each social network they are part of. In the near future, technologies that enable a portable identity will empower consumers to carry their identities with them, transforming marketing, CRM, and advertising. We are just seeing the beginning of this transformation, in which the Web will evolve step by step from separate social sites (‘walled gardens’) into a cross-channel shared social experience. Consumers will rely on their peers as they make online decisions, whether or not brands choose to be part of this. Socially connected consumers will form cohesive communities and shift power away from brands and their CRM systems; this will result in like-minded communities who will define the next generation of products. Forrester has spoken about the emergence of Social Relationship Management or SRM. Marketers will need to target these communities rather than individuals.

The future of Social Media is also mobile. This is natural and inevitable; people want to stay in touch; most of all when they are on the move between: home, work, school/ college, sports event, bar, friend’s house. The iPhone has changed the rules, the other smartphones have further empowered the consumer; all phones are getting more powerful and Social Media on mobiles will continue to grow. All the major social networks are working closely with mobile manufacturers and network operators.

Today brands are the sum of all conversations about them; the brand owners cannot fully control these conversations but they can influence them. It is essential to establish where these discussions are happening, to access these platforms, to listen, to understand and only then engage by joining the most relevant conversations where value can be added. That is social media marketing and as we have seen it is far from easy to do well and it’s changing continuously.

This is the time to get involved. Don’t wait. Tell senior management to trust you. You’re the visionary who's taking the time to read this post. Sure, we can’t currently measure the ROI for everything we’re doing in Social Media. But that doesn't mean we should stay away. On the contrary, strong and forward-thinking brands are already actively involved: listening, engaging, trying things, learning. These lessons will be valuable. Many are already paying back. It doesn’t need to be expensive (remember much of it is ‘free’ media), and it’s certain to be (part of) the future. These conversations about brands are going on NOW, whether the brand owners are participating (or even aware) or not.

As Social Media guru Larry Weber says: “It's time you joined the conversation.”