CluetrainPlus10 Project: Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the company.

In 1999, Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger wrote a book that was so prophetic, it arguably shaped and reinvented the way that businesses approached communicating with their key markets using the Internet. At a time when there was only a minimal amount of social networking sites and message boards were one of the only ways people were interacting with eachother online, the book was eerily ahead of its time with its theories and predictions. The above title is number 28 out of 95 theses that the authors of the bestselling book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, stated.

Today, organizations are embracing the online and social media space in two distinct ways. Some organizations that have embraced the social Web to communicate their messages with their key markets using a number of different online communications channels. Some companies have thrived to be more open in terms of allowing the public to go behind the scenes. Elements that pull the curtain back on certain organizations are being added to corporate sites more and more frequently. Corporate blogs and liberal blogging policies implemented by other organizations allow employees to share what they do on a day-to-day basis with their stakeholders. This thesis is becoming less and less relevant as organizations begin to utilize social media and social media marketing.

Even a once staid and faceless corporation like Microsoft has opened itself up with internal videos and by actively encouraging employees at all levels to blog and to share their work with the outside world.

Ten years from now, more and more organizations will follow in Microsoft’s steps. They will be open to scrutiny and will continue to win the trust of their key stakeholders once they’ve stepped into the online space. People have a human need to want to connect with each other and we are seeing more people openly and willingly interact with the organizations and brands that they are most passionate about. Facebook, for example, is a social networking site that we see vast numbers of people engaging with each other and with brands on Facebook fan pages.

Although the above thesis may not stand as strong ten years from now, this book is a must-read for all marketers looking to effectively understand why they need to change their marketing strategy and to learn how to communicate with their key audience. As Michael Wolfe puts it, “Love it or hate it, no one with a stake in the online scene can afford to ignore what this book is saying.”

Social Media This Week: January 23, 2009

Inauguration 2.0

The news: The inauguration made history in more ways than one. The web allowed people to connect globally to watch this historic moment take place.

According to this post, Twitter had five times the normal Tweet traffic. The word “Obama” appeared 35,000 times an hour during his speech in different Tweets. There have been over 300,000 new videos uploaded to YouTube with the tag “Obama” over the course of the week. Closely behind that number, 17,000 new videos were uploaded with the tag “Inauguration” in the last five days. Furthermore, there are 175,000 news results filed under “Inauguration” according to Google and Technorati reports nearly 18,000 blogs mention this week’s event.

Key learning: People aren’t just watching the TV anymore. When you have a newsworthy story, consider every medium that people are communicating in – and join the conversation.

If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it over Twitter

The news: James Andrews, a PR executive from Ketchum in the States flew to Memphis to discuss social media with one of the agency’s biggest clients, FedEx. Once Andrews landed in Memphis, he posted the below message on Twitter:

“True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I hade to live here.’”

An employee of FedEx followed Andrews on Twitter (on Twitter, you have “followers” which are people who have chosen to see your updates) and saw Andrews' comment and shared it with FedEx’s corporate communications team. The below response was sent to Andrews on behalf of FedEx prior to his arrival:

“Mr. Andrews, If I interpret your post correctly, these are your comments about Memphis a few hours after arriving in the global headquarters city of one of your key and lucrative clients, and the home of arguably one of the most important entrepreneurs in the history of business, FedEx founder Fred Smith. Many of my peers and I feel this is inappropriate. We do not know the total millions of dollars FedEx Corporation pays Ketchum annually for the valuable and important work your company does for us around the globe. We are confident however, it is enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness from someone in your position as a vice president at a major global player in your industry. A hazard of social networking is people will read what you write. Not knowing exactly what prompted your comments, I will admit the area around our airport is a bit of an eyesore, not without crime, prostitution, commercial decay, and a few potholes. But there is a major political, community, religious, and business effort underway, that includes FedEx, to transform that area. We’re hopeful that over time, our city will have a better “face” to present to visitors. James, everyone participating in today’s event, including those in the auditorium with you this morning, just received their first paycheck of 2009 containing a 5% pay cut … which we wholeheartedly support because it continued the tradition established by Mr. Smith of doing whatever it takes to protect jobs. Considering that we just entered the second year of a U.S. recession, and we are experiencing significant business loss due to the global economic downturn, many of my peers and I question the expense of paying Ketchum to produce the video open for today’s event; work that could have been achieved by internal, award-winning professionals with decades of experience in television production. Additionally Mr. Andrews, with all due respect, to continue the context of your post; true confession: many of my peers and I don’t see much relevance between your presentation this morning and the work we do in Employee Communications.”

Key learning: If you are using the online space (whether on behalf of a client or representing yourself), never say anything you wouldn’t say to someone’s face. Social media is public and always accessible.

Facebook De-Friends Burger King Application

The news: In the States last week, Burger King launched a free application over Facebook that encouraged users to “sacrifice” 10 of their Facebook friends in exchange for a free Whopper. The application convinced users to dump over 200,000 of their friends. This week, Facebook put pressure on Burger King to make some changes to the application that more closely aligned it with Facebook’s philosophy. Facebook did not take a liking to the messages that were being sent to the “sacrificed” friends stating that their friends dumped them for a beef patty. Burger King concluded the application rather than making any changes.

Key learning: Sometimes social media is an end in itself. Sometimes it drives a PR campaign. Burger King’s decision to drop the campaign rather than modify it suggests this was one of the latter.

Social Media This Week: December 19, 2008

"Social Media This Week" will be taking a break over the Holidays. Our next week in review will be posted on January 9, 2009. Seasons greetings from all of us here at com.motion.

You Got Served – Over Facebook?

The news: The Capital Territory Supreme Court in Australia has approved the use of Facebook to serve legal documents. An Australian couple, who were unreachable via e-mail and their home address, had defaulted on their home loan. The bank used a law firm called Meyer Vanderberg to contact the couple. After several attempts to reach the unnamed couple, Attorney Mark McCormack, asked the Australian court for permission to serve the papers electronically to the couple over Facebook.

Key question: What’s next? Marriages in Second Life? Oh wait. That’s been done.

Holiday Party Excuse Generator

The news: For years, physical holiday cards were considered a standard gesture between companies during the month of December. For the past couple years, e-cards have been the trend. In a somewhat cluttered holiday card giving season, organizations may find it difficult to have their greetings stand out to their clients and potential clients. Two years ago, Enlighten created a viral marketing hit called the Holiday Party Excuse Generator to send to their network rather than the traditional holiday greeting. On the site, consumers can create tongue-and-cheek excuses about why they are unable to attend one of the holiday parties they’ve been invited to. Enlighten didn’t promote the site this year, but the excuse generator gets a spike every year.

Key learning: The best viral campaigns get timing right. They involve a sense of urgency, but many are also timeless.

JC Penny Puts Men in the Doghouse

The news: Late in November, JC Penny launched a five-minute online video where a woman takes her husband and puts him in the doghouse in the backyard after he buys her a vacuum. When the character falls into the basement of the doghouse, he is greeted by men folding laundry and drinking chai lattes while a stern woman over a loud speaker is saying things such as “express your feelings” and “help with the cooking.” The video has been viewed more than 1.7 million times and has driven a ton of conversation (positive and negative) in social media as well as traditional media. On the “Beware of the Doghouse” website, women can send their significant others gift “warnings” over e-mail or Facebook.

Key learning: The best viral campaigns involve really good creative. And that may cost a whole lot more than a TV ad supported by paid media. After all, consumers are choosing to watch this.

Social Media This Week: December 5, 2008

Friend Portability

The news: On Thursday, Google and Facebook separately announced their own data portability programs called Google Friends Connect and Facebook Connect. The ability to move a group of friends from one social network to another is something many users have been seeking for quite some time. Both Google and Facebook users will be able to use their identities from these sites on others that support one of the programs. The sites that will support these programs will allow their visitors to log in and use the already available information in their profiles as well as find friends already on the sites that they currently visit. The programs are intended to minimize the number of usernames and passwords that users currently use. Using the Google Friends Connect feature, for example, on a companionable site, visitors will be able to go into the site using both their AOL or Yahoo username and password.

Key question: Does friend portability lower the barrier to entry for someone to build a new and better social network?

Santa 2.0

The news: For many years, Canadian children have been sending letters to Santa in the hopes of getting exactly what they want for Christmas. Sympatico MSN has introduced Santa to the beauty of e-mail and personalized web video to help reach out to children using a site called the Portable North Pole. You simply type in a child’s name, age, location, and a few other things and that child will receive a personalized message from Santa in the North Pole. The video is available in English and French.

Key question: With letters to Santa going digital will there be anyone, anywhere sending handwritten letters anywhere?

Canadian Tweetsters and Politics

The news: Politics in Ottawa have sent Tweetsters (Twitter users) aflutter this past week. Twitter is a microblogging tool that has exploded in the past couple of months in much the same what that Facebook exploded early last year. For many hours on Thursday, “coalition” was the most common phrase on Twitter (right after “Christmas”) causing hundreds of confused Americans to wonder what the heck is going on in Canada. Click here to see what Tweetsters are saying about the coalition.

Key question: There’s lots of Canadian politics still to come. What role will Twitter play in the new year?

Social Media This Week: November 14, 2008

Today com.motionblog launches a new weekly feature where we help our readers keep on top of the latest developments in the rapidly-evolving world of social media. Check back each Friday for the top headlines of the past week.

Live.com by Microsoft

The news: This week, Microsoft’s Live.com online portal has evolved from a search engine into a new social network. Site users are automatically connected with their contacts on the popular instant messaging portal Windows Live Messenger. The users’ profiles include basic personal information and can pull content from other blogging sites, microblogging sites, and photo sharing sites. Users can access other online services including e-mail, calendar, online storage and downloading services that include other Office programs such as Movie Maker. Microsoft’s goal is to ultimately increase site traffic on Live.com and they’ve leveraged what they own: instant messaging.

Key question: Can Microsoft gain enough traction with Live.com to become a real player in the mass social network market dominated by MySpace and Facebook?

Facebook Engagement Ads

The news: Using a healthy mix of both online advertising and social networking, Facebook launched a new “engagement ad” format this week. The ads appear on the main login page and prompt users to RSVP to a TV show season finale or comment on a movie trailer. That ad then gets promoted by sharing the update with the user’s friends. Facebook is charging more for the new engagement ads than it currently does for the display ads. The ads give Facebook users three unique experiences: commenting on ads for all friends to see, giving virtual gifts and becoming a fan of a certain ad.

Key question: Can Facebook turn an enormously successful social network into a successful business model?

Sponsored Videos on YouTube

The news: Although there has been buzz for some time, YouTube formally announced the launch of Sponsored Videos. The videos direct viewers to certain clips that they might be interested in after conducting a search. Marketers will be able to use this new service by seeding a campaign or to launch a new video. The product strives to help advertisers target keywords in a cost-per-click auction similar to that of Google’s AdWords service. The ads have a thumbnail image and three lines of promotional verbiage pointing to a specific page.

Key question: When will Sponsored Videos (if at all) replace AdWords on Google?

Facebook marketing: Effective but picky

We recently administered a Facebook campaign for one of our clients with a social ad directing users to a fan page and a microsite. The results have been terrific.

But getting the thing set up was a bit of a comedy of errors.

When I first submitted the social ad copy, I was told it was awaiting approval. I was worried it might get rejected because it had the word "sucks" in the headline. It did get rejected but for an entirely different reason. This particular client spells its brand name in capital letters as a point of style. But apparently this is not allowed by Facebook.

I received the following e-mail from the Facebook Ad Team said:

The text of this ad contains excessive or incorrect capitalization. All ads must use appropriate, grammatically correct capitalization. The title of your ad, as well as the first word in each sentence, must begin with a capital letter. Lastly, all proper nouns and acronyms should be capitalized. As per section 4 of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines, all ads should include standard and proper capitalization.

I resubmitted writing our client's brand name with just a single upper case letter. But again, the social ad was rejected. This time the culprit was a period I had placed at the end of a URL.

The text of this ad contains improper or unnecessary punctuation. All ads must end with a form of punctuation. As per section 5 of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines, all ads should include logical, correct punctuation.

I removed the period and the ad was accepted.

For those of us who live and breathe social media, Facebook is viewed as, like, soooo 2007.

But the truth is that - despite its pickiness on points of capitalization and punctuation - it remains the most important social network for Canadian marketers by a massive margin.

Happy Easter all!

How to get Social Media Smart

I just made a presentation to business and marketing students from across Ontario at the Queen's Marketing Association Conference.

My topic: How to get Social Media Smart. My thesis was simple: You're into marketing. You want to work in marketing. Social Media Marketing is huge and growing and if you're not already active in this space you'd better get there fast.

Before I get to my seven tips on How to Get Social Media Smart, a few quick observations...

• While these university students get social media, their experience is largely limited to Facebook, YouTube and reading blogs. Only a couple wrote their own blogs. Most didn't know much about Twitter or LinkedIn; few used social bookmarking tools or feed readers.
• The exception was one guy who put up his hand for everything -- he blogs, he Twitters and Jaikus, he uses feed readers and social bookmarking. If I were hiring for a marketing job, he's he guy I would want.
• They also told me that Facebook is still gaining in popularity on campus. It's easy to get stuck in our tech geek bubble where Facebook is, like, so 2007, but it's worth remembering that Facebook is still, by far, the No. 1 social network in Canada. Marketers who don't have a Facebook strategy are behind the 8-ball.
  

That said, I offered them seven tips on How to Get Social Media Smart. Here they are:

1. Join another social network. Facebook isn't enough. Try LinkedIn or Twitter, or another social network.
2. Read blogs, lots of blogs.
3. Listen to podcasts. My favourites include Marketing over Coffee, For Immediate Release and Six Pixels of Separation. (Come to think of it, I'm probably somewhat indebted to Mitch Joel of Six Pixels for this list; he did a similar list in his New Year's Show).
4. Join the conversation. Don't just lurk. Blog, microblog, post comments on blogs, leave comments on podcasts.
5. Use a feed reader. (I use Google Reader.)
6. Use a social bookmarking tool. (I use del.icio.us.)
7. Manage your own online brand. Google yourself. Try to develop a consistent online persona. And remember that everything you post online (even in a closed community like Facebook) can live on forever.

All friends are equal but some friends are more equal than others

In my 2008 predictions post last week, I predicted (somewhat hopefully) that social networks like Facebook would start to understand that not all friends are created equal. Watch for increased ability, I wrote, to tag friends based on relationships and set privacy settings accordingly. This would mean that a Facebook user could chose to share certain photos with current friends, but not the grade four stalker from 20 years ago.

Well, the Inside Facebook blog reports today that Facebook will enable that functionality in the first quarter.

Also coming in the next three months: Facebook in other languages and the toppling of the rule that prevents groups larger than 10,000 members from being able to send messages out to its members.

Thanks to Rob Cottingham of Social Signal for this image.

Sorry Scoble: You don't own your friends

Who owns your friends: You or Facebook?

Robert Scoble, the big time Web celeb and co-author of Naked Conversations, has been kicked off Facebook for violating the site's terms of service.

In a post about the move today, Scoble admits he was running scripts on the site (apparently in violation of Facebook's terms of service) but says he should be allowed to take his friends with him and move to another social network. He's thrown his support behind dataportability.org.

The argument in favour of friend portability is summed up well by a comment on Scoble's blog from Chris Hambly, who writes:

Yes this is one of the reasons FB annoys me, it is MY social graph, my time and energy, I want to export it.

Yes, it's your time and energy, but is it really your social graph? Sorry Scoble, I disagree.

As a private company, Facebook has no obligation to let you have a last meal and say your bye byes when you violate its terms of service. Scoble paints himself as some sort of dark knight vigilante, testing Facebook's terms of service to protect us all. And maybe he is. But he broke the rules, he got caught and now he has to pay the price.

Many will argue that it's good business for Facebook to allow data portability. They say that the network that has the least onerous terms of service will prevail. And to a point I agree, but not when it comes to data portability. That's kind of like saying that whatever restaurant lets people eat for free will get the most visitors. Social networks will make money on the strength of their members' social graphs.

Facebook gets this and won't let you take yours away without a fight. At Facebook Camp Toronto in October, Facebook's Ami Vora boasted about the nework's social graph and how it made Facebook so important and powerful for developers.

Besides, it doesn't look like Facebook has banned Scoble permanently, just "disabled" his account. It looks like he's getting a chance to promise he won't break the rules again. I think the chances of him agreeing to that are about as likely as the chances that Facebook will let him teleport his social graph to another network.

(Thanks to Tyler Reed for this image of Scoble on Facebook).

The is isn't on Facebook

A couple weeks back, I reported that the much-hated "is" on Facebook's status line was going to disappear so awkward sentences like "Keith is loving Burrito Boyz" could be replaced by the much more sensible "Keith loves Burrito Boyz."

Problem is the is still was. But now it's not. Thanks to Rich Bloom for pointing out the change that will shake the social graph to its core.


mcarthur (at) veritascanada.com

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Facebook fumble: How can the poster child for social media conversations be so bad at it?

Back when I was working as a reporter, I was struck by the fact that the companies with the strongest brands are sometimes the worst at public relations. I won't name names, but suffice to say that some of Canada's most iconic brands are among them.

The most recent (non-Canadian) example is Facebook, which had come out of nowhere in the past 12 months to establish itself as one of the English speaking world's most loved brands. No exaggeration.

It's also no exaggeration to say that the Facebook folks are precariously close to losing all that good faith.

In an online piece yesterday Josh Quittner, the former editor of Business 2.0 magazine, warned that Facebook is being harmed "perhaps to a terminal degree" by "enormously bad PR." He writes:

For a social media company, these folks don’t understand the first thing about communication; they have alienated the press by being arrogant, aloof and dishonest. Their idea of press relations is sending a stupid message to a What’s New at Facebook Group that directs you to another website for a canned statement. ... Facebook has turned all the people who rooted for it into a lynch mob. In the space of a month, it’s gone from media darling to devil.

His harsh words relate to Facebook's PR efforts around its Beacon advertising program, which allows Facebook advertisers to send users' personal data -- like what books or movies they order -- to their friends.

Also yesterday, Robert Scoble (author of Naked Conversations), dumped blog criticism on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for his turtle act around Beacon:

I don’t see ONE SINGLE INTERVIEW that Mark Zuckerberg, or top executives at Facebook, have given ANYONE. Hell, don’t like me or other bloggers? Then give a press conference with professional press. ANYTHING would be better than the way that Facebook is handling this.

It appears that Zuckerberg may have got the message. For the first time in 15 months, Zuckerberg posted today to the Facebook blog. (Interestingly, his last post was also an apology).

Here's what he wrote today:

We've made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we've made even more with how we've handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it. ... It took us too long after people started contacting us to change the product so that users had to explicitly approve what they wanted to share. Instead of acting quickly, we took too long to decide on the right solution. I'm not proud of the way we've handled this situation and I know we can do better.

He took responsibility, apologized and announced that Facebook has released a privacy control that allows users to turn off Beacon altogether. This may be a case of too much, too late. Zuckerberg failed to follow one of the primary rules in crisis management: Apologize because it's the right thing to do, not because you have to. By waiting too long (until he had to), he may actually have had to make greater concessions than if had been able to get ahead of the crisis early on.

Facebook is the poster child for social media, conversation marketing and online communities. But while it facilitates and enables those communities, it is surprisingly ignorant in how to converse in them.

mcarthur (at) veritascanada.com

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Is was and has been on Facebook

Much excitement in the blogosphere today about news that Facebook is eliminating the requirement that users build their status updates around the word "is."

Effective tonight, status entries such as Keith McArthur is blogging, Keith McArthur is tired and Keith McArthur is writing a press release can be replaced with gems like Keith McArthur blogs, Keith McArthur dreams of sleep and Keith McArthur shall save the world one press release at a time.

As Betsy Schiffman at Wired points out, some Facebookers chose to ignore the structure, leading to status entries such as Betsy is loves to dance.

Virtual champagne will no doubt flow tonight in Facebook groups like I die a little bit inside when I see grammatically incorrect status updates (411 members) and Facebook Petitition to Remove the World "IS" from the Status Updater (995 members).

Update: The is is still there. Betshy Schiffman reports that a note went out to developers last Monday saying it would disappear, but it (is) stubburnly refuses to die.

Fun with Facebook Flyers

Before I switched careers, I did a big feature in the Globe and Mail on Facebook marketing. At the time, Mike Murphy, Facebook's vice president of media sales, told me that while Facebook could theoretically target ads to consumers based on the personal data they entered into the site -- hobbies, political leanings, favourite TV shows -- it chose not to do so.

Back then, Facebook was weighing its revenue goals against potential privacy concerns, and determined that it was best to segment ad audiences according to a small number of criteria, such as network and gender.

Not anymore.

Now advertisers can take advantage of Facebook's vast gathering of personal user data and segment to their heart's content.

But what's really cool is that the data is all available for free to play with on the Facebook Flyers page. By way of Mashable, I found this post from online political strategist Patrick Ruffini, who used the tool to learn that while few Republicans were fans of the band Radiohead, they did love playing Halo 3.

I've had some fun running similar statistics on Facebook's Canadian users.

Take the New Pornographers, one of my favourite Canadian bands. There are 10,880 people in Canada who have them listed as a favourite band. Of these 3,280 people list their political view as Liberal versus 200 for Conservative. 4,800 fans are male, versus 5,120 female. 3,440 are single, versus 4,320 that are in a relationship, engaged or married.

But among the 35,020 Canadians who list the Bible as a hobby, just 2,120 are Liberal compared with 8,180 who say they are Conservatives.

(One caveat: Facebook capitalizes Liberal and Conservative, although the terms are intended to refer to ideology, rather than party affiliation. I would guess that some Canadian Facebookers use the term one way and some the other).

Facebook is dead; long live Facebook

There's much debate on the blogosphere today about whether Facebook is dead or dying.

The latest U.S. Comscore statistics suggest that Facebook's unstoppable climb is, well, stopping. The numbers point to a 9.3 percent decline in unique visitors and 3.8 percent decline in page views compared with August.

But before we bury the social network that swallowed Canada, a bit of a reality check is needed.

First, September contains one day less than August, which means that even if traffic stayed steady, a three percentage point decline.

Second, Facebook traffic also declined in September of 2006, when compared with August. That's because the ratings system has a bias towards home computers. When September comes, students log on more often from public terminals at school.

And third, these numbers only apply to U.S. users. Facebook points out that its Global page views rose to 57 million in September, up from 54 million in August. Year over year, it ended September with 44 million active monthly users, up from 9 million a year earlier.

But the numbers do serve as a reminder that it's still too early to know if Facebook will achieve the level of market dominance in the United States that it has in Canada. Will the Facebook craze in Canada and England bring the United States along, or will U.S. consolidate around Myspace or opt for some new social networking site. And if so, will the dominant U.S. social networking site eventually drag the rest of us in?