Quick-n-dirty Social Media Podcast: Episode 6 Recap

Well, It's only taken six episodes but I think that Jennifer Leggio and I are starting to hit our stride on the Quick-n-Dirty podcast series. For one, we're starting to get used to each other's style (no easy task when you can't see one another). We've also figured out how to use Skype as a back channel for the show. A third thing that helps is that Jennifer and I do live feedback right after our broadcast which is a helpful way to look back at what's worked and what hasn't

For anyone new to the show, here are the recaps of episodes one, two, three, four and five. We'll also be posting the roster for next week's show on the Blog Talk Radio show site soon. The big news for next week's show is that we'll have CEO of music social networking site, Pandora. For no other reason, you'll want to tune in to hear what Tim Westergren has to say about the state of music, how Pandora has battled legal issues and of course, how you can fine tune your Pandora station to get the most out of it.

If you missed this week's show, you can listen to an archive of episode six here. If you're more of a reader than a listener, you'll find a recap of this week's show below:

1. Featured Social Network: Loopt. This geo-location based social network is helpful because it provides real time, GPS-informed data on members' whereabouts. It also allows for members to text, ping or call anyone within their network. Jennifer doesn't love the concept of geo-based networks that don't give you a full of control over who can see what (but she caveats that it's because she's a "'fraidy cat.") I like these types of geo-based services because they are a great way to connect with friends or acquaintances when at a conference or out on the town. For what it's worth, our special guest, Greg Matthews sided with me on this debate. Score one for the guys.
2. Special Guest/Case Study: As I mentioned, Greg Matthews, director of consumer innovation at Humana, was our special guest. He also doubled as our weekly "case study" as he talked about some of the best practices Humana is employing to change the way customers -- not just of Humana, but of the industry in general -- perceive health benefits providers. You can read more about what Greg and Humana are doing over on Amber Naslund's Altitude Branding blog. By the way, Greg's best quote of the podcast (as captured by my partner in crime) was easily, "The concepts of governance and social don't go well together." You can find Greg's blog here.
3. Featured Twitterer: For our first five episodes, we've focused on finding executives that Twitter and blog. As you can imagine, this is no easy task so we've decided to shift focus a little bit to a "featured twitterer." This is someone that "gets it" and that you may or may not know but should be paying attention to. This week, we highlighted none other than Mr. Clue Train himself, Doc Searls. In a nutshell, Doc is funny, human and helpful. He also follows back... okay, not everyone but enough people to avoid the criticism of being to clicquey.
4. Point / Counterpoint: Speaking of clicquey (our point/counterpoint two weeks ago), this time we went toe to toe on a topic Jennifer covered in her ZDNet blog, namely, Is Twitter Making Us All Self-Centered. Jen argues, "yes," because everyone is becoming too broadcast focused. I didn't disagree with her overarching point but stuck with my guns that at the end of the day, you control who you follow. If people are too broadcast focused, you vote with your feet and unfollow them.

Oh, the REALLY exciting news was that we gave away a free 2009 Blog World Expo pass. What was really exciting was that our friend, Jen Wojcik of Austin, TX won (I did the drawing randomly so no griping about the process being fixed). Congrats Jen. We look forward to seeing you at Blog World Expo this fall.

What, this recap wasn't enough? Well go and listen live or download archived podcasts here.

Engagement vs. Serendipity

Earlier this morning, my Twitter friend, Michael Calienes who is also the co-founder of The Conversation Factory, tweeted out a clip he did on video social network, 12 Seconds. You can watch for yourself but for those of you that prefer the written word, Michael's question was "What if over the next couple of weeks you un-followed everyone who's never engaged with you on Twitter?"

What I liked about Michael's question was that it wasn't an "eff you" kind of statement but rather a thoughtful one. His follow up question was, "Do you think it would improve the relationships you have with the people who do engage with you?"

unfollowing the unengaged on 12seconds.tv

What I liked most about this quick video was that it got me thinking about engagement vs. serendipity, two things that are possible more now than ever via social media. The first concept, engagement, is obviously something that is high on any marketer's priority list. The second, serendipity, is something that we love when it comes our way but rarely do we feel like we have much control over the phenomenon. To me, that is really the beauty of Twitter because it allows both to happen simultaneously.

But that's not what Michael asked in his clip this morning. He wanted to know would paring down on followers that are essentially "dead weight" allow us to spend more time with the people that matter. In essence, this is something that I think we all grapple with in life in general.

So here's my answer... as tempted as I am to pare down my 8,000+ followers, I never will. You know why? Because every day someone new who was in the list of "haven't previously engaged with" crops up and adds value to my life. There are a few personal examples of how this has helped here and here It's also been invaluable in my professional life helping me helping me drive leads, create partnerships, find podcast/blog interviewees, or even land speaking engagements.

What do you think? If you had your druthers, would you slim down the number of people you engaged with based on reciprocity? Or are you like me -- willing to roll the dice based on the possibility of what might be?

Quick-n-dirty Social Media Podcast: Episode 4 Recap

For the most part,  co-host, Jennifer Leggio and I got our act together for episode four. The only wild card for this one -- and it was a big one -- was the news that pop icon, Michael Jackson, had died just before our show got started. And while neither Jennifer or I are huge MJ fans, it felt only fitting to take a moment of silence during the show for "Mr. Moonwalk."

For anyone new to the show, recaps of episodes one, two, and three can be found here. We'll also be posting the roster for next week's show on the Blog Talk Radio show site soon.

If you missed this week's show, you can listen to an archive of episode four here. If you're more of a reader than a listener, you'll find a recap of this week's show below:

1. Featured Social Network: Blip.fm. If you like music and you like Twitter, then Blip.fm is the place for you. You can DJ your own music, listen to others, give "props" to your friends or cross-post links to your favorite songs in other networks like Friendfeed, Facebook, etc. On the positive side, it looks like Blip has some element of a business model by allowing users to buy songs on iTunes and Amazon. They also have tons of live versions of songs. On the "room for improvement" side, not every artist has allowed their songs to be played leaving a bit of a gap.
2. Special Guest: Michelle Heath, CMO of ForEx startup, Currensee. During our 10 minutes with Michelle, she talks about how she and Currensee are tapping into the power of social to not only create but promote a community for foreign exchange traders. Good stuff.
   
3. Case Study: Pitney Bowes/Lithium. I could talk about this or I could send you over to Jen's much better write up on her ZDNet/Feeds blog.
4. Executive on Twitter: This week's exec is the CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and Harvard Medical School, John Halamka. During our conversation, Jen and I discussed the fact that John doesn't fit the normal "featured exec" mold because he doesn't follow many people back and he mostly uses Twitter for updates. However, given his field, I thought he was doing a good job at providing some transparency in a normally tight-lipped space.
5. Point / Counterpoint: Is social media too cliquey? Inspired by Jennifer and my mutual friend, Doug Haslam's post, we talked about whether folks in social media were shy as Mack Collier claimed or just arrogant. Find out who took whom's side by listening in.

For next week's show, we need your help. We're trying to decide whether or not to move our show up an hour to start at 5:00 PM ET / 2:00 PM PT. If you have thoughts on this front, either leave them in the comments below or tweet one of us... @aaronstrout / @mediaphyter.

What, this recap wasn't enough? Well go and listen live or download archived podcasts here.

Twitter as the GPS: Video from @JeffPulver's 140 Character Conference

Last week, I was lucky enough to be asked by my friend, Peter Fasano, of Coke to moderate a panel called "Twitter as the GPS for the Greater Social Media Mesh" at the 140 Character Conference in NYC. The idea was to talk about how Twitter is helping businesses navigate in a "2.0" world. Given the backgrounds of our panelists, we decided to focus on four different vertical industries: financial services, entertainment, advertising and CPG.

My fellow panelists were:

• Brian Morrissey (@bmorrissey) - Digital Editor at Adweek
• David Berkowitz (@dberkowitz) - Emerging Media Director, 360i
• Hadley Stern (@hadleystern) - Vice-President, Fidelity Labs
• Peter Fasano (@pfasano) - Principal/Lead Catalyst, Mass+Logic and Social Media Marketer at The Coca Cola Company

This is only a twenty minute video so I highly encourage you to spend a few minutes listening in. If you have thoughts, comments or feedback that you'd like to share, feel free to do so in the comments below. I have my fellow panelists e-mails so I'm happy to ping them to try and get an answer.

Why Authenticity is More Important Than Ever

This post originally ran in Mediapost's Marketing Daily on 2/18/2009

We live in an age where the Internet and the telephone have created enormous scale and opportunity for businesses large and small. For the most part, this has been a good thing, allowing companies to reach, acquire and serve more customers than ever before. While this reach and scale has helped to foster innovation at an unprecedented rate, it has also served to disintermediate companies from their customers. The end result has been a growing lack of trust on the part of the consumers. 

As a business owner or someone who works at a big company, you may think to yourself, "What does it really matter if my customers trust me? Obviously, it would be better if they did but what's the real harm? At the end of the day, they will end up turning their back on me for someone that can provide my same product or service 'faster, better and cheaper.'"

While this may be true, it's where many companies have lost their competitive edge. Where's my proof?

I'll start with Best Buy, a company you are likely familiar with. Not only is Best Buy listed as the second most valuable brand according to Interbrand Design Forum's latest rankings. It's also listed as number 24 in Vitrue's list of top 100 most social brands. Granted, "social" isn't the sole driver of their more important ranking of "most valuable" brand, but it does plays a key role behind the prestigious "most valuable brand" ranking.

The reason I chose Best Buy as the example to illustrate my point is that it is the epitome of a company that understands the importance of authenticity, and it comes from the top. From its well-documented employee community, Blue Shirt Nation, to its management team which is best exemplified by CMO Barry Judge, this is a company that conducts its business openly and honestly.

During a recent voluntary separation package offer that Best Buy made available to its employees to try and stave off having to do what so many other big and small businesses are doing, Judge openly discussed on his blog the pain that he felt about losing a large number of co-workers.

The comments on Judge's blog exude empathy and compassion in spite of the fact that Best Buy is a huge company and it needed to reduce headcount, which is not unique in the current economy. But on his blog, Judge's authentic and honest tone makes him, and his brand, human. And people have a much easier time trusting a human, especially one they can empathize with, instead of a cold and unfeeling corporation.

Additionally, Best Buys' current ad campaign features real store employees recounting stories of helping customers and the reward it provides to them personally and professionally. Taking this a step further, Judge has also openly discussed the genesis and evolution of this ad campaign on his blog, going so far as to welcome public feedback and asking for input on which creative executions are the right ones to put on air.

In this example, Judge and Best Buy are not only trying to put an "authentic" face on their brand by letting their employees do the talking, they are involving their customers in the process to ensure that they get it right. In doing so, they are garnering trust -- something the Enron's and the leaders of many of the large financial institutions have stolen from us over the last several years.

These examples of what Best Buy is doing demonstrate some of the essential qualities that are increasingly becoming competitive differentiators between brands like:

• Blogging from the heart -- even if if feels a little too open and honest

• Using customer feedback to drive upcoming marketing and advertising campaigns

• Responding to customer comments in a human voice

After all, who would you rather do business with? A company that you know and trust? Or a company that offers the lowest price? Yes, price will always be important but in a highly commoditized world, it's things like authenticity that lead to trust that will truly make one company different from another.

How authentic is your company? If the answer is "not very," it may be time for a change. Just ask Best Buy. The results speak for themselves.

Quick-n-dirty Social Media Podcast: Episode 3 Recap

The third episode of Quick’n'Dirty Social Media Podcast (#qnd) was a little smoother than episodes one and two. For starters, I remembered to set the length of the show for 45 minutes vs. 15 so all the listeners could follow along for the duration. I was also able to play our new bumper music, Bring Back the Bass, at least at the tail end of the show (thanks to Brett Petersel for providing). Next week, I promised co-host, Jennifer Leggio, that our show would go off without a hitch... we'll just have to see!

If you missed this week's show, here’s what we discussed:

1. Featured Social Network: Glue. They are doing some very cool things with social browsing. They also just released a press release that said that they are exposing some of their APIs so that developers can use Glue's functionality in their sites. Jen and I both like what Glue is doing a lot and will continue to keep my eye on them.
2. Case Study: This week's focus was all about the small business. Ever see one of those mobile food carts floating around the city? Yeah, the ones that sell bagels or tacos or sausages? Well guess what. They are starting to use Twitter and the results are paying off. In regard to Korean BBQ purveyor, Kogi, Kate Krader, restaurant editor for Food & Wine magazine says in the background article "That [Kogi's recognizable brand name is] 90 percent thanks to Twitter."
3. Special Guest: Mike Murray, CSIO of Foreground Security was kind enough to join us to discuss true social engineering in social networking / social media. Pretty powerful stuff. If you weren't a little wary about who you "friend" in the socialsphere before, you might be after listening to Mike speak.
4. Executive on Twitter: Jeffrey Hayzlett, CMO of Kodak. I had the pleasure of meeting Jeffrey and hearing him speak at this week's 140 Character Conference. I was pleased to see that he was as funny and genuine in real life as he was on Twitter. Definitely worth the follow.
5. Point / Counterpoint: This week was a little less of a "square off" and more of a recap of Jeff Pulver's recent 140 Character Conference. If you weren't lucky enough to attend, the videos from the event are up. I loved the conference and while Jen didn't exactly disagree with me, she decided that conference producers need to be careful to focus less on the tools and more on the goals of we business folk (think "lead gen" vs. "e-mail marketing" for instance). I agreed but my take was that we needed to ratchet it up a notch and apply that thinking to all social media events, not just those focused on Twitter.
6. Special Bonus: one of our listeners encouraged us to talk a little about Twitter and it's role in the latest Iranian elections. We didn't have much time to cover such an important topic but did manage to spend a couple of minutes opining on the subject.

Jennifer and I are in the process of working on next week's show but we promise it won't dissapoint. At a minimum, Jennifer has a special announcement that should get folks excited. If I say more than that, Jen may disown me as a co-host.

What, this recap wasn't enough? Well go and listen live or download archived podcasts here.

Live Blogging the 140 Character Conference

Photo credit: Jill Hanner

Sorry, I never gave context for this post. I'm at Jeff Pulver's 140 Character Conference in New York City and am trying to provide some running notes from this action

packed event. Today I'm keeping up. Tomorrow might be tricky (speaking at 9:20 AM and then in meetings on and off after that).

Link to conference agenda is here.

Link to the #140conf hashtag is here.

Tim O'Reilly CEO/founder, O'Reilly Media

• realized that at times he was tweeting too much so started capturing/formatting his tweets in a text document. Later he would decide whether or not to tweet those updates.

Fred Wilson (venture capitalist/blogger)

• Links are the currency of the internet.
• Talking about how to make money from Twitter.
• Links to blog coming from Facebook and Twitter are starting to eat into Google referrals.
• One business model for Twitter would mimic the way Overture introduced "paid search"
• Google currently spends a lot of time on environmental remediation i.e. addressing spam, phishing, etc. Twitter is going need to do the same.
• Passed links on FB and Twitter are more "trusted" because they come from someone you know - as a result, they have a higher likihood to convert
• http://tcrn.ch/3y0 (recap by E Schoenfeld)

John Borthwick - Founder of Twitter Search

bit.ly/140/ecosystem

General thoughts from Liz Strauss and panel with Brian Solis, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian6 and Brook Lundy of Some eCards

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=aaronstrout+%23140conf

Maegan Carburry - Political Blogger for Huffington Post

• Recommends reading Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
• Asks, "are we contributing original thoughts to socialsphere?"

[cont'd]

UBER Panel on Twitter as News Gathering Tool

Moderator: Robert Scoble

Panelists:

Ann Curry - anchor of NBC

Rick Sanchez - Host of 3PM Newsroom on CNN

Ryan Osborn - Producer NBC's Today Show

• Scoble is hammering Rick Sanchez, CNN and press in general for not giving more Iran coverage this weekend.
• Scoble also asks if we are evolving the coverage mainstream news gives foreign topics because we now "know" some of the people in these countries and they are more human/touchable to us.
• Rick Sanchez says that social media is pushing CNN to validate whether or not elections were real or not
• Ann Curry (beautiful voice in real life btw, very melodic and soothing) talks VERY passionately about covering Iran. Said that people there were talking to reporters and people were 1) risking their lives to talk to them and 2) were asking if all Americans thought that they were terrorists. Ann also stressed the importances of reporters now treating people in countries like Darfur, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. like they are your mother, sister, brother.
• Rick Sanchez/Ryan Osborn said it is tricky because trad'l news is held to standard of "it's got to be right." They are required to do more fact checking.
• Ann Curry - was doing some real time reporting on Twitter recently because main stream news was covering. Had to be VERY careful to make sure she wasn't passing along any information that was wrong.
• Audience questions - frustration around mainstream media covering "fluff" pieces vs. hard hitting stuff. [NOTE: in theory, this is great but it's not what most people want to watch]
• Rick Sanchez says that it's imperative to use Twitter to have conversations with watchers - not to use it as a gimmick.

[cont'd]

• Rick Sanchez notes that if CNN or other news disappears, it takes away a lot of the content that social content creators can talk about.
• Scoble retorts to Rick, "you DID disappear on Saturday and we got along just fine."

[Side note: had a fantastic conversation with Scoble, Jim Stone (camera man for

NBC) and Ryan Osborn after the panel. They agreed that this is a seminal moment in the history of social media and traditional media.]

Moeed Ahmad - Head of New Media Technology and Future Media Department Technology Division, Al Jazeera Network

• First off, Moeed notes that he traveled 16 hours to get here. WOW! I will never complain
• "If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space"
• "If it doesn't fit in 140 characters, it's not worth saying" - @riy
• Now talking about Twitter's roll in War 2.0 - cites hashtag use of "#gaza"
• Interesting because Al Jazeera team was skeptical about use of Twitter at first. Then @Ev tweeted a link to their site and traffic went through the roof. Now they get it. ;)
• Able to run a page with live tweets with a column next to it that tells whether the news has been verified or not [brilliant idea]
• Challenges: covering a party that is not popular on Twitter who wins an election (when party that lost IS popular on Twitter)
• "Telling the truth is hard. Not telling it is even harder." (see poster below)

Jeremy Epstein - Marketing Navigator, Never Stop Marketing

• Interesting approach to Twitter. Only follows 140 people. Looks for:
  - Experts
  - High signal to noise ratio
  - Constantly looking to earn right to spend more time with people he wants to network with

Jeffrey Hayzlett, CMO of Kodak

• Twitter is changing Kodak (not your father's Kodak anymore)
• 60% of people at company are new
• Looking for new ways to make connections with people
• Worst thing you could say about Kodak is absolutely nothing.
• Said people come on their blog and say "your product is f*cking, f*cking, f*cking, f*cking, f*cking not good" is okay because it's feedback.
• They are listening to their customers - want to make ink cartridges much more interchangeable.
• Jeff is showing his humorous side - he is currently trying to figure out term for someone that is malicious on Twitter. Crowd consensus is "twanker."
• Right now, he's calling out a particular competitor that was anonomously posting and taking shots at Kodak. Also expressing desire for Financial Times to be at 140 Character Conference
• Jeff answers/triages tweets that people send when problems or questions arise. Said that this wasn't possible even a year ago.
• Big moment for Kodak/Jeff - one of Barack Obama's daughters used a Kodak camera. People started tweeting Jeff like crazy. It trended and made the NY Times.
• Interesting thought, what is the "cost of ignoring."

For more live tweets from people beyond me during Jeff's session, go here:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23140conf+jeffreyhayzlett

[cont'd]

I'm now a Texan (humorous)

As any of you that follow me on Twitter or read my blog regularly now know, I've officially settled in the great republic of Texas -- Austin, TX to be exact. To that end, I'm working on acclimating myself and my family as fast as possible. Fortunately, I have co-workers like Mary Lemons who was kind enough to share a list with me via e-mail titled, "To Help with your Texas-ifying." It was a list of 40 items -- all humorous -- that I'm sure has been amassed through blog posts and e-mail forwards over the years.

Knowing my proclivity for sharing, I couldn't resist posting the "best of" this list below. Apologies to the original source of this list -- if anyone knows who owns it, let me know and I'll be sure to provide proper attribution.

You know you’re a Texan if:

1. You know it’s a given that the true value of a parking place lies in the shade, not the distance to the door.
2. You see just as many Texan flags as American flags.
3. You end a lot of words without the letter “g.”
4. You can drive all day (and more) and never leave the state
5. You’ve actually burned your hand opening your car door. (or front door for that matter)
6. You know all 4 seasons: Almost summer, Summer, Still summer, and Deer season.
7. You choose a brand of salsa with the same care that another might use to select a bottle of fine wine.
8. You know that “Fixinto” is one word.
9. You have owned at least one belt buckle bigger than your fist.
10. You aren’t surprised to find movie rental, ammunition, and bait all in the same store.  
11. You know there are 5,000 types of snakes and 4,998 of them live in Texas.
12. Your biggest bicycle wreak fear is, “What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?”
13. You know everything goes better with BBQ sauce.
14. You don’t consider people from Austin to be real Texans.
15. You can fix anything with Duct Tape.

Image credit: http://www.sxc.hu

Quick’n'Dirty Social Media Podcast Launches Today

The Quick’n'Dirty Social Media Podcast kicks off today at 3 p.m. PT / 6 p.m. ET. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, this project is a joint one withAaron Strout, and it came about after a dinner debate in San Francisco. We’ll be doing all kinds of fun stuff — point / counterpoint, case studies, highlighting lesser known social networks, spotlighting cool members of the social media community, and we’ll even have regular guests. Our first show is going to be a little less formal since we want a chance to play with the format and get some feedback, so we won’t have a guest this week. But we will have other fun stuff.

Speaking of fun stuff, we’d also hosted a two-week long logo design contest. Well, you see the logo above. We love it! Big thanks to Kenneth Lim who designed the winning logo. He went above and beyond and gave us several options, and the design was so clean and fun that we had to go with it. Kenneth has won the following:

• Seagate: Free Agent Go portable hard drive
• Intel: A coveted Ajay Bhatt t-shirt
• Scate Ignite: Copy of Scate Ignite 4 multi-media presentation and e-learning software
• EuSecWest: Conference ticket -OR- MIMO UM710 mini monitor

I am sure we will do other giveaways and prize incentives in the future, so be sure to listen to the podcast. The BlogTalkRadio link is here. Will you join us?

Cross-posted from http://mediaphyter.com

Yet Another Boston to Austin Trip Update

Mobile post sent by astrout using Utterli.  Replies.  mp3

Yet Another Boston to Austin Trip Update

Mobile post sent by astrout using Utterli.  Replies.  mp3

Yet Another Boston to Austin Trip Update

Mobile post sent by astrout using Utterli.  Replies.  mp3

Yet Another Boston to Austin Trip Update

Mobile post sent by astrout using Utterli.  Replies.  mp3

Weekly Social Marketing Links: May 25, 2009

Each week, the members of Powered's marketing, business development and product teams pick a news article, blog post or research report that “speaks” to them. With that article, they need to come to our weekly staff meeting prepared to give a 120 second update on what the article was about and why they found it useful. Links are below:

Beth Lopez (Marketing)

Found the article, The One Word You Can't Say, quite amusing given how we have always advocated the need to view social marketing as a long-term strategy. Seems that it's starting to become a mantra at all of the social marketing events and tradeshows. Per the article, the word you can't say is "campaign" when referring to social marketing...preferred alternatives include terms like "program," "initiative," or even "conversation."

DP Rabalais (Marketing)

Great article aimed at CEO / CMO level. Do You Need a Social Media Marketer? Measurement & analystic seems to be the big reason more companies aren’t embracing social media / social marketing. Another reason we need to continue to plug our analytics/insights capabilities at Powered. To that end, I called out a paragraph from the article that drives our point home:

A recent survey of 110 of the top CMOs by recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles in Atlanta seems to echo Schwartz’s point. The report found that social media was a relatively low priority—ranked in the bottom third. “Mostly it’s because of analytics,” said Lynne Seid, a partner at the firm. “The things that are measurable are a top priority. Most marketers see [social media] as an experiment.

Bill Fanning (Business Development)

This weeks article is titled Social Media vs. Social Responsibility, written by Reid Carr (president of Red Door Interactive). It's an interesting look at Social Media being the great equalizer to the companies who over the years have behaved more like magicians trying to trick people into buying their product or service rather than honestly marketing and selling their products and services.

His premise is that this behavior has lead to a severe distrust with consumers and social media allows consumers to have a powerful vioce, finally balancing the power that traditional businesses and media outlets once owned. He notes that it's our responsibility as consumers to not only support our favorite businesses by purchasing from them but also by talking about them in various social media outlets. Likewise, it's our duty to responsibly talk about the poor experiences we've had with businesses.

Jay McIntosh (Business Development)
On a self-appointed hiatus this week.

Doug Wick (Business Development)

A very short article about the brand innovation behind Cereality, a café concept based on our favorite cereals. This article struck a chord because of the way that they developed the idea for Cereality, by building on the brand equity of popular cereal brands and focusing on a food category that is both ubiquitous and taps into brand passion. The approach put forth is similar to the process behind the conception of branded online communities, which tap into passion points and truly put the consumer at the center of the experience.

A salient quote from Cereality’s founder – “When you hit that zeitgeist and people are excited and find it relevant to their lives, they start a conversation and you have to be at the center of that conversation.”

Don Sedota (Product Management)
This week I picked a report written by Forrester analyst, Laura Ramos, titled Effective Customer Reference Management Anchors B2B Community Marketing Efforts, that might be helpful to our program managers in the context of setting up community customer reference strategies for our clients and/or for our own corporate marketing efforts. Hopefully validates/supplements our current strategies in both arenas.

Cross-posted on http://blog.powered.com

Do YOU Unconference?

By now, I think nearly everyone has heard of an unconference. If you haven't, it's an event where a bunch of smart people get together and then self-organize around a series of topics that they vote on. M

ore importantly, if you haven't been to an unconference, it's high time you tried one. And in particular, the one you should really consider trying is coming up in two short weeks.

The unconference I'm talking about is of course ForumOne's Online Community Unconference and it's taking place in Mountainview, CA on June 10 at the Computer History Museum. Here are just a few reasons why you might consider coming:

• They expect between 200-300 community pros -- people that have lived and breathed community for years at Fortune 500 companies.
• Because this is the unconference's 4th year, ForumOne has had an opportunity to fine tune the experience to maximize the learning/networking aspects of the event.
• Folks that attend are community managers, community directors, social media strategists, product managers, executive level management, community moderators, Web producers, community/product evangelists, marketing managers and directors of primarily enterprise companies.
• Participating organizations include: Autodesk, Cisco, Civic Ventures, Collabnet, Diddit, Executive Networks, Get Satisfaction, Google, Hi5, Intel, Intuit,  LinkedIn, LiveOps, Microsoft, NetApp, NewGang Live, PARC, Rackspace, Salon.com, Scottrade, Social Edge, Symantec, TechSoup, Twine.com, Walmart.com and Yahoo!.

Find out more about what you'll learn from from last year's wiki (including session notes). If you're a more visual person, here is a collection of attendee-generated pictures from last year's event on Flickr.

What do I get out of this you ask? Nothing actually. But I've attended a couple of ForumOne's unconferences in the past and they provided an opportunity for some wonderful learning AND networking. On top of that, Bill Johnston, the chief community officer for ForumOne, is a super smart and awesome guy.

Assuming I've piqued your interest enough to attend, head on over and sign up now before they run out of space!

May 19: Weekly Content/Social Marketing Links

Each week, the members of Powered's marketing, business development and product teams pick a news article, blog post or research report that “speaks” to them. With that article, they need to come to our weekly staff meeting prepared to give a 120 second update on what the article was about and why they found it useful. Links are below:

Beth Lopez (Marketing)
Kicking butt on next week's webcast and our new website this week - she gets a hall pass...

DP Rabalais (Marketing)

Two articles this week. One on how Retailers are Shifting Marketing Dollars. The other speaks for itself...

• Study: Retailers Shift Marketing Dollars Towards Social Media


• Forrester: Social Technology is Like Sex

Bill Fanning (Business Development)
The article I’d like to share was published in Tech Crunch and is titled, Jump Into The Stream. The author, Erick Schonefeld, discusses the evolving distribution of online information, from a collection of web pages to a real-time stream, and the impact on web business and consumers of information. The interesting part of this article is the idea of the new metaphor being “streams” instead of “pages”. Web business are transforming from being owners of content to providing a place to present the most relevant stream of information, i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Digg, Google Reader, and a bunch of others. Consequently, the way we consume information has been forever altered.After reading the article, I started thinking about how this applies to branded communities. I think it re-enforces the importance of being able to share your activity in a branded community with the “stream”. For example, the ability to publish a particular activity to your Facebook feed, or the ability to share an article through sites like digg or de.li.ci.ous. Participating in these types of distribution networks are, and will increasingly be important traffic drivers to the community. It also re-enforces the need to supply a steady stream of new and relevant content to keep the community engaged. The content could be professional, user generated or both, but it needs to constantly evolve.

This article is loosely based on a blog post by John Borthwick, CEO of Betaworks (Twitter, bit.ly, Tweedeck, etc.) titled, Distribution ...Now, which he references several times. Also, well worth the read!

Jay McIntosh (Business Development)
My article this week presents a perspective on the challenges of seller vs. buyer interactions. It’s written by an experienced marketer who has been on both sides of the “fence” at different times in her career. I too have spent several years on both sides and completely understand where the author is coming from when she points out the all-too-common salesy approach taken with potential buyers. A salesy approach is when the sales person thinks, talks and acts as if it’s about them, their product, their company. This is the way the majority of salespeople (and companies) approach buyers even today. They want to tell their market all about themselves and why they’re the best…blah, blah, blah.

Anyhow, I switched over from the buy side to the sales side about 12 years ago. At that time, the promises of the Internet and all the new technologies and tools made it okay to sell/push products. Actually, it was more about just taking the customer’s orders and getting the contract/PO in place. That doesn’t, won’t and can’t work today or any time in the foreseeable future. It is all about the buyer and what the seller can do to grow their business. Start with this as the foundation of developing a business relationship. This foundation based on the seller delivering the goods, provides an ongoing compelling reason for the buyer to buy…it really is that simple!

Doug Wick (Business Development)
This week's article is taken from Business Week’s Executive Guide to Social Media, How CEOs use Twitter. The individual stories are interesting, but the common story is that these CEOs need to be able to hear individual voices, and to choose whose voices are important to listen to at any given time. The power of social is just that, to introduce not only the voices of peers, but the voices of individuals inside companies and inside brands. Within brand communities, the consumer can listen to all of these voices and decide which ones are important given their needs and where they are in the customer life cycle.

Don Sedota (Product Management)
On vacation this week - he gets a hall pass...

Cross-posted on http://blog.powered.com

Quick 'n' Dirty Podcast: Logo Design Contest

The other day, I posted about the fact that my friend, Jennifer Leggio, and I are planning on doing a weekly podcast. Being more organized and forward thinking than me, she realized that we probably needed a logo. To that end, she's put the rules up on her blog. The important stuff that you need to know if you want to enter is below...

[W]e’ve pulled together some fantastic sponsors who have contributed to a prize package for the best Quick’n'Dirty podcast logo:

• Seagate: Free Agent Go portable hard drive
  
• Intel: A coveted Ajay Bhatt t-shirt
  
• Scate Ignite: Copy of Scate Ignite 4 multi-media presentation and e-learning software
  
• EuSecWest: Conference ticket -OR- MIMO UM710 mini monitor

Want to win all of those prizes? Simply enter the contest. Some guidelines:

1. Aaron and I know the name is edgy but this is still a family friendly podcast. He has a wife and kids and I have… well… he has a wife and kids!
   
2. Our tagline is “Because social media doesn’t have to be complicated.”
   
3. Our format includes some head to head point / counterpoint, a weekly challenge to listeners, digging into unknown social networks, and highlighting up and coming social media rockstars
   
4. We’re fun but we’re serious about what we do. So fun but professional would be a good tone.

Submissions should be uploaded to Flickr or a comparable site and the link (not the attachment) should be emailed to mediaphyter gmail com.

Deadline: Friday, May 29. We want to have this up and on our BlogTalkRadio page before we kick off on June 4.

Let’s see what ya got!

Content Marketing Webinar FTW

Wow! Really looking forward to moderating next week's content marketing webinar with rock stars, Lionel Menchaca of Dell, Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 and our very own, Natanya Anderson of Powered. Based on the dry run we did (with Simon Salt filling the roll that Joe will play on this webinar), we're going to cover some exciting territory.

Here is the write up:

In an age where more and more consumers are taking a “search and click” approach to buying new products, it’s becoming harder for brands to differentiate themselves from the pack.  As continued pricing pressures continue to mount, companies are turning to great content as a way to drive ongoing, active engagement with their brands and products, which can ultimately create deeper loyalty with their customers.  Creating user-centric content that puts the customer’s needs first instead of focusing on brand and product messaging requires a paradigm shift and development of new ways of communicating. 

Here what three content and community experts have to say about:

• How to bootstrap your online community with professional content
• The best practices and case studies of companies that are seeing measurable results
• Content that spans the brand content continuum: lifestyle, category and productHow to turn prospects into buyers with great content

Register to attend!

Getting Started with Social

In a few weeks, I'm giving a presentation to a large company about ways they can be thinking about social media. I haven't fleshed out the PPT yet but thought it might be helpful for other folks that are trying to find a "toe hold" in their companies (big OR small) to get started.

1. What social isn’t:
   - One way conversation
   - Just another PR tool
   - Technology
   - A fad
2. What social is:
   - Vehicle for Many-to-many conversations
   - Way to deepen customer relationships and create referrals
   - Great feedback mechanism
   - The phenomenon that happens when you bring content AND conversation together
3. Uses for social within a brand:
   - Customer service (reduce phone/e-mail costs)
   - Marketing/sales (generate leads, deepen loyalty, lengthen customer tenure, increase referrals)
   - Market research (ongoing vs. episodic)
   - Product innovation (co-create w/ your customers)
   - An early warning mechanism (canary in the coal mine)
4. Brands that are doing social well:
   - Zappos (Twitter, blog)
   - H&R Block (Twitter, Facebook)
   - Dell Inc. (Ideastorm, blogs, Twitter)
   - USAA (Facebook, Twitter)
   - Best Buy (Blog, Twitter)
   - American Express (Open Forum community)
   - Allstate (Twitter, blog, Youtube, Facebook)
5. Key considerations:
   - Create a strategy (make sure it ties in with existing business goals)
   - Pick an audience/customer segment
   - Start listening (Google alerts, Twitter Search, Get Satisfaction, Radian6, Cymphony, BuzzGain)
   - Identify executive sponsors (an individual or small committee)
   - Plan to “give before you get”
   - Measure, measure, measure
6. Twitter
   - What is it?
   - How is it different than LinkedIn or Facebook?
   - Why is it gaining momentum?
   - How are companies using it?
   - List of top companies/brands using
   - Best practices (from Tim Walker of Hoovers)
   - Pitfalls
   - Who "mans" the account? Who needs to be involved? 
   

As always, additions/subtractions/corrections are welcome.

Photo Credit: Robert Scoble

New Podcast Show with Jennifer Leggio aka Mediaphyter

What do you get when you combine a year plus Twitter relationship, numerous collaborative efforts including a social media charity auction, guest blog posts and losts of link love with a dinner argument over the merit of celebrities joining Twitter? A weekly podcast show with a good friend and kindred spirit, that's what. Yup, in a couple of weeks (shooting for June 4), Jennifer Leggio aka @Mediaphyter and I are kicking off a weekly podcast show.

The working title of our show is, "Quick 'n Dirty Social Media." Here's the tenative format we've discussed:

• Case study (alternate B2B/B2C)
• Featured guest
• Opposing viewpoints based on the week's hot post/topic
• Review of a social network du jour (think FourSquare, Plurk, Tripit)
• Discuss a new exec that is blogging or twittering
• Challenge

Because we'll be kicking our podcast off in three Thursdays (6:00 PM ET/3:00 PM PT), we still have time for your feedback. Are we missing something important? Are we trying to cover too much? You can either weigh in here or on the show itself (yup, we'll be broadcasting live). I don't know about you but I'm excited!

URL for the BlogTalkRadio page is coming SOON.

Tara Hunt's "Whuffie Factor" Tidbits from Community 2.0

A few pearls of wisdom from Tara Hunt, marketing lead at Intuit aka @MissRogue's keynote at the Community 2.0 Conference. Her focus is on "The Whuffie Factor."

1. Do good by doing well (quote from Craig Newmark) - also embraced by Stonyfield Farms
   
2. Think customer-centrically. No brainer but one that we forget a lot. Remember to take your corporate hat off and think like a customer.
3. Help others go further. Give tools to democratize:
   - Blogger - journalism
   - Flickr - amateur photography
   - Youtube - budding actors
4. Spread love. Help people be better people. Mission cards are a good example - they say things like, "give someone a book" or "send drinks to a couple in love."
5. Value something bigger. Don't forget to spend time focused on/thinking about public education, the environment, public transportation.

Following these concepts will help you to embrace The Whuffie Factor!

Making Whuffie

View more presentations from Tara Hunt.

Photo Credit: http://blogs.bnet.co.uk/sterling-performance/2009/04/29/tara-hunt-the-wuffie-factor/

5 Things Marketing and Sales Can Learn from Dating

I’ve been on a kick lately. I’m talking incessantly about what businesses – marketing and sales in particular – could learn from the practice of dating. Surprisingly,  many business folk have either forgotten how to date or are so desperate, they are trying to get right to the… punch line. Either way, there are no excuses for their despicable behavior!

With that as a lead in, here are my five rules of engagement (pun intended):  

1. Stop trying to stick your tongue down our throats on the first date! My money says that you wouldn’t try and give someone an open mouth kiss 30 seconds after meeting them so why are you trying to sell us something before you get to know us. You’re bad at this via e-mail and even worse on Twitter. Please stop!
2. Don’t ask us to marry you within 24 hours after we meet. I’m betting that most normal people in the world don’t get married after their first date. So why do marketers assume that they have a relationship with us after one conversation? Give us some space and try courting us first.
3. Remember the importance of conversation. Anyone that’s ever dated or been married knows that conversation is not just important, it’s the lifeblood of any good relationship. So why does it seem like many marketers and sales folks today are great at the “asking out part” but not so much when it comes to actually talking to us?
4. I can see the condoms in your wallet (stronger visual if sales/marketing role is male and consumer role is female). When we as consumers know that all you want to do is sleep with us, it’s kind of a turn off. We’d like to get to know you first. Maybe date for a while. Send us some flowers and pay us some compliments. After that… well, you know where I’m headed.
5. Give before you get. This isn’t a sexual reference per se (although read it however you like) but if you know anything about me, you’ve heard me say it a lot. It’s because it’s one of the most important things you can do in a relationship. Sadly, too few businesses get this right. They assume that you will automatically like them based on their looks and charming personality (marketing/sales pitch) to let them take first (money) before they give (product/service).

So when did I become such an expert on dating? Well, I’m not. But I’ve been married for close to 13 years and I’m on the receiving end of a lot of bad “dating” practices as a consumer (both personally AND professionally). As a result, I try and apply the best practices I’ve learned in creating relationships with others – my wife in particularly –  to my job.

Do you have any best practices that should be mentioned? Surely, there are others of you out there that are good at nurturing relationships. ;)

UPDATED (from comments)

@JeffCutler adds... "it's not a free and equal exchange all the time and both sides should realize that."

@ARN-edition adds... "marketers shouldn't be afraid to let consumers "date around" before making a commitment. Give them space to see what else is out there and decide if you measure up. If your product/service is as good as you think it is, they'll be back. And they'll probably appreciate you more for letting them figure it out on their own."

@MichelleBatten adds... "Don't wait days or weeks to "call" me. Let me immediately know how much you appreciated my interest, order, feedback. Make the next date with me around something you know I'll be interested in to continue the relationship"

@RHappe adds... "Don't be the guy/gal who likes long walks on the beach and cozy fires in the winter (i.e. we will facilitate strategies to leverage your potential) AND be the person/brand who has something unique to offer and don't hide it behind obscure language. In the dating world that might be "I love to sail Lasers in Buzzard's Bay". Specific. Easy to understand."

@KarinaShaver adds... "'Don't try to be someone you're not.' We can sniff you out a mile away if you're putting on airs - know who you are (what value -not product or service- you offer the consumer), and be confident that it's worthwhile."

@Kristen Escovedo adds... Made me think of some bad dates and bad pitches. Here is my addition; Don't give up romance and date nights after the wedding. Once you walk down the isle, seal the deal, and things get comfortable, couples tend to settle into a routine and forget that to keep a relationship fresh and vibrant, you still have to bring home a bottle of wine and do the dishes for no reason every once in a while.
@kescovedo

Photo Credit: http://technobuzz.net

Does No. of Followers Change Your Twitter Usage?

@NatanyaP and @Palpatim were talking about this topic this morning. I thought it would be easier to respond with an Utter. ;)

Mobile post sent by astrout using Utterli.  Replies.  mp3

Content Marketing FTW

This morning, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel on content marketing at Bryan Person's Social Media Breakfast. I was fortunate enough to have three very smart, eloquent and experienced individuals in Lionel Menchaca, chief blogger at Dell Inc., Simon Salt, ceo and founder of Incslingers and Natanya Anderson, VP of content strategy and development at Powered (yup, she's my colleague).

The premise of today's talk was that as consumers continue with their “search and click” approach to buying new products, it’s becoming harder for brands to differentiate themselves from the pack. As continued pricing pressures continue to mount, these same companies are turning to great content as a way to drive ongoing, active engagement with their brands and products, which can ultimately create deeper loyalty with their customers. Creating this type of "user-centric" content that puts the customer’s needs first instead of focusing on brand and product messaging requires a paradigm shift and development of new ways of communicating.

Because I was the moderator, I wasn't able to take many notes but due to the power of Twitter and hashtagging, I was able to go back and read through many of the nuggets captured during the session. Here are my ten favorite:

MisssK: Best content focuses on what other ppl need/want 2 hear, not what u want 2 say...gr8 take on push vs pull/outbnd vs inbnd mktg #SMBAustin

kpearlson: There are only 26 letters in the English alphabet how hard is it to write? Same goes for creating content. Not all of it is good #smbaustin

ThomasUmstattd: As your product becomes a comodity you must compete on relationship. What kind of relationship do you have with your readers? #smbaustin

charlienb: When a company engages with customers they also should be committed to real org change too. @lionelatdell #smbaustin

Stalelife: The closer you get to getting advocates to produce social content, the less time you spend on it yourself. #smbaustin

iamseanmcdonald: ever sesne a company trying to force tongue down your throat? thx to @aaronstrout for that visual #smbaustin

Stalelife: Most brands are not Disney? Not a passion brand. Content can be the proxy for the brand. #smbaustin

TWalk: "Always start with the audience." @natanyap's closing thought at#smbaustin

Stalelife: You don't own your brand. Make content sharable. #smbaustin

LiveWorld: Great line from @NatanyaP at this morning's Social Media Breakfast Austin 7 (#SMBAustin): "The best content is in service of others."

Here is the full stream of tweets from Social Media Breakfast 7 (in Austin).

Is your company creating great, engaging content? Are they engagine in "social" content that Simon Salt mention is so important creating engagement?

May 7: Weekly Content/Social Marketing Links

Each week, the members of Powered's marketing, business development and product teams pick a news article, blog post or research report that “speaks” to them. With that article, they need to come to our weekly staff meeting prepared to give a 120 second update on what the article was about and why they found it useful. Links are below:

Beth Lopez (Marketing)

Will the IAB's Social Media Metrics Definitions Help Crack The Engagement Code?   Found this article interesting particularly since we are solidifying our measurement framework and how we define 'engagement'.  The IAB published social media metrics definitions yesterday and while they aren't different from what you expect, it does help advertisers and marketers that are struggling with measuring their social programs demonstrate the value of it.  This would be good for all customer-facing folks to learn these as the IAB is regarding as the standard in defining how to measure online programs/advertising.

Here are a few of the things the IAB doc defines:

• Application and video installs.
• The number of relevant actions, including newsfeed items posted, comments posted, uploads, poll votes, and so forth.
• Conversation size, which measures the number of content relevant sites and content relevant links, and the monthly uniques spread across those conversations.
• Site relevance, which measures the density with which phrases specific to a client concern are brought up among relevant sites.
• Author credibility, such as how relevant the author's content is and how often it is linked to.
• Content freshness and relevance, which defines how frequently an author posts.
• The average number of friends among users of a specific application.
• Number of people currently using an application.

DP Rabalais (Marketing)

Keeping in line with my commitment to alignment with our Sales Plan, I selected REI as the company to do a search on this week. My post this week is by Albert Maruggi, founder and president of Provident Partners and host and producer of the Marketing Edge podcast. I chose it because I feel like it builds a strong case to support REI as a strong prospect for Powered.

Bill Fanning (Business Development)

Jay McIntosh (Business Development)

My weekly share is actually not an article but a few tidbits from a recently released study by Razorfish entitled “Digital Mom."

1. Women control the majority of spending in the US and the world. To that end:
   

• Consumer spending accounts for approximately 70% of GDP in the U.S.
• Women a.k.a. “Chief Purchasing Officers” control 85% of household buying decisions in the U.S. and the majority handle family finances.
• On the business side, women have accounted for 70% of all privately held start-ups over the last 15 years.

Marketers want to engage with people who buy things…women.

1. Women, by and large, are much more “communal” than men. Think about it, women often turn to others for guidance, recommendations, etc., and they love to share (i.e. tell others about their experiences). Guys, we tend to be more independent and hierarchical. We hate to (i.e. won’t) ask for directions, we compete with each other in almost every- and anything, and usually prefer to conduct our own in-depth research rather than listen to someone who may have “better” research than us. Anyhow, the full report is about 37 pages and talks about a LOT of things, however, the three key takeaways that I found most interesting and relevant to us are the following:
   

• Mom’s areas of interest are lifestyle categories…duh!
• Their purchase decision funnel behaviors fit really well with what Powered does.
• The highest value information sources for moms are a lot of what we provide in a Powered community.

Doug Wick (Business Development)

My post this week is from “Social Media Insider” written by David Berkowitz of 360i (cross-posted on the Agency's website).

David does a nice job of offering his experience in running a self-service Facebook targeted ad campaign, including the results he saw. Many of his results are confirming of what we’ve heard – in a pretty targeted campaign he saw very low clickthrough, and he notes that FB must find another way to monetize if it expects to live out its large valuation. The upside is that Facebook ads are extremely cheap to test, and he predicts (I think rightly) that there may be ways to reach very specific, segmented audiences with compelling content-based ads - so he encourages people to test and see.

Don Sedota (Product Management)
A recent Forrester article called, Four Essential Components of Successful Innovation Initiatives, caught my attention due to the fact that, well I’m in the product innovation business ;-). The first two components, “Creating and getting executive support for an innovation strategy” and “Use central management and coordination to carry out the strategy” are pretty straightforward.

The third component, “Use individual contributors to feed the innovation function” struck a chord because it’s something we’re currently trying to implement more effectively for the internal product strategy process. Examples of this include Dell’s Ideastorm and IBM’s annual Innovation Jam. In fact, we’ve been tossing around the idea of creating an internal Ideastorm where employees can go to submit ideas and fellow employees can comment on them and vote them up/down. This could also tie into Yammer so that everyone gets notified when a new product idea is submitted. As far as I know this actually wouldn’t be that difficult to implement internally.

The fourth component, “Ties to community bring objective insight and can deepen relationships” has to do with using community (external resources) to inform product strategy. This struck a chord because it’s something that’s come up recently in the context of our product roadmapping discussions due to interest from Clinique and Sony. This form of product strategy “crowdsourcing” is becoming more and more popular.

April 29: Weekly Content/Social Marketing Links

As I mentioned in our first Weekly Content/Social Marketing Links post, I've asked the Powered marketing, business development and product teams to pick one news article, blog post or research report a week that "speaks" to them. With that article, they need to come to our weekly staff meeting prepared to give a 120 second update on what the article was about and why they found it useful.

My goal is to share this content on a weekly basis. Here's what our fourth week netted:

Beth Lopez (Marketing)

Paying homage to Twitter this week since I am making a concerted effort to tweet more and become more educated on best ways to utilize it both professionally and personally…couple of interesting articles:

7 tips for the Perfect Twitter Profile
Love these tips as most on twitter don't follow them (I've found)….
1. Use your real name (hard to find you if I don't know your 'handle')
2. Use a real picture (see the avatars all the time)
3. Think SEO when writing your bio
4. Include a URL
5. Consider a custom background
6. Don't protect your updates
7. Take it slow

Twitter Confesses: Most Users Don't Return
This is a very short article, but thought it very compelling. I can see why folks would not go back after using Twitter for the first time, but there is a lot of debate out there on these numbers and why people defect after the first time, so take it FWIW.
Twitter continues to grow at a rapid pace, and yet new research from Nielsen Online indicates the microblogging phenomenon faces an uphill battle in maintaining consistent use by millions of its users.

The research firm found that more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month. During the past year, Twitter has only maintained a 30 percent retention rate. In other words, the mass of new users isn't large enough to make up for the large group that is defecting or losing interest.

For good measure, Nielsen compared Twitter's early days to that of MySpace and Facebook. Even when those two social networking sites were just emerging, their retention rates were twice as high as Twitter's, according to Nielsen data. Both Facebook and MySpace now enjoy a retention rate of 70 percent today.

DP Rabalais (Marketing)

My article of the week is not mind-blowing, but definitely relevant to our Targeted Sales Strategy. Short article on how the Big 3 US Automakers are embracing Social Media.

Doug Wick (Business Development)
This is a good article from Greg Verdino where he discusses the developing language among marketers that are referring to social media as “earned media” vs. the more traditional “paid media.” He illustrates how we aren’t really going far enough in just talking about different types of media – because media as a word still has the connotation that the message is controlled by the marketer. Greg talks about how we should be seeking “earned attention” – and that focusing on anything else as a marketer within the social web is taking your eye off of the ball.

Bill Fanning (Business Development)

This week’s article is titled, How to Breathe Life into your Loyalty Program, written by Robert Manning (VP of client services for Schematic).

As I was reading this article, I was pleased to hear him basically repeating Powered's philosophy of “give before you get”. His premise is that an effective loyalty program is good at building real relationships with people by giving them value. Not just following up with folks 9 months after purchase to try to sell them something else, but really listening to the customer, understanding the individual and providing a means for them to share their experience with your brand.

While the idea of hard rewards are nice, that will not build a strong relationship by itself…often times that builds a desire to get more points, not necessarily brand affinity. Case and point, I do everything I can to get AA miles so I can save money on personal travel (by the way, that’s getting harder and harder these days) while the fact of the matter is, I'm not a huge fan of the brand!

Don Sedota (Product Management)

There was a lot of press yesterday (and some internal conversations on Yammer) about the new Facebook Open Stream API which will allow developers to pull in Facebook’s activity streams for use within their own 3rd party applications. This article on Mashable does a good job of summarizing the announcement.

While Facebook Connect essentially allows 3rd party apps to push out their site content to the Facebook news feeds, thus enabling communities to extend its site content reach and facilitate word-of-mouth marketing (i.e., demand generation), the Open Stream API allows the consumption of Facebook content within a 3rd party site.

As a result, we could strategically leverage the Open Stream API (in concert with Facebook Connect) within our client communities.

Specifically, the OS API allows the 3rd party site to filter out comments, "likes" and stories on a per application basis. If I'm not mistaken, this means that we could track "likes" and comments that are generated from the content stories posted from the Facebook Connect facilities on our sites and could also track comments, "likes" and stories generated from the brand application on the Facebook side. In the context of our current offerings, this would allow us to keep track of Facebook conversations that occur around community content that was pushed out via Facebook story feeds.

Style 2.0 - Wow!

As many of you who read this blog know, I am constantly searching for things that are new and social to write about. To that end, I couldn’t resist jumping on the news my friend, Mike Pratt, recently shared with me about some exciting things he and the Style Coalition (which he and his wife Jean co-founded with Yuli Ziv) are doing to change the fashion industry. To that end, last Wednesday, luxury handbag and accessories online retailer, Avelle, worked with the Style Coalition to launch their five year anniversary campaign. While Avelle’s campaign itself embraced social media, it was different in many ways from the run of the mill variety many of us a slowly getting used to experiencing.

A few highlights:

• Because the campaign is run by the Style Coalition vs. going through an agency to the traditional media, Avelle is one step closer to the consumer and thus is more likely to be perceived as being “engaged in the conversation.”
• The Style Coalition, which consists of 10 top shelf bloggers/online publishers, is posting and creating conversations/engagement about some of their favorite topics like, handbags and accessories.
• Avelle wants to encourage conversation with its customers so the posts by the Style Coalition’s bloggers will be focused on the products & brands that Avelle carries but not explicitly about Avelle itself.

To sweeten the pot a little, the Style Coalition is going a little bit “old school” and will be giving away Avelle Gift Cards (substantial) via a variety of contests. The campaign itself will run over the course of three weeks with embedded widgets in each post by the Social Coalition providing cross linkages and additional value to each blog’s readers. Of course no good social campaign would be complete without Twitter – Avelle’s is using the hashtag #Avelle5Year.

For all this engagement and effort, the publishers will be compensated, in effect directly as the Style Coalition passes through revenues. Who doesn’t love a win/win where the Style Coalition can increase the effectiveness of its outreach and brand engagement while putting more revenue directly into the hands of the "value add-ers.” This “outside-the-box” approach is one that more businesses need to be thinking about where:

1. Innovative thinking is encouraged and rewarded.
2. A win/win is created for all stakeholders involved (as opposed to, “look at the great publicity you’ll get out of this ‘Joe/Jane’ blogger.”)

Oh, and my favorite part? The Style Coalition is providing full campaign tracking, stats and management. This way, brands like Avelle will not only suspect that the campaign is working, they can actually pinpoint which elements worked, which didn’t and how such successes (or failures) can be repeated again in the future in a more scalable fashion.

You go Mike! Way to combine beautiful people, their clothes and accessories and the world of social. To quote Facebook for a second, “Aaron likes this way of doing business.”

Live from Ad:Tech SF, Jimmy Wales

The good news is that Ad:Tech cares enough about the concept of "social" to go out and get one of the original consumer generated content guys in Mr. Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia fame. His session is titled: Wikipedia, Wikia and the Future of Consumer Generated Media.

The room is fairly crowded (3rd FL of Moscone West). We're about 2 minutes from showtime...

Jimmy is walking through background data on Wikipedia (what it is, what it isn't) as well as its global reach. One thing that is fairly impressive is the fact that Wikipedia is the fourth ranked Website on the internet (behind Google/Youtube, Microsoft and Yahoo). He predicts that by next year, Facebook will move up into top five. Interesting stat - 4th largest Web property in the world has 25 people that work for it full time. I guess this makes sense when you think of the thousands of people that volunteer to contribute all of the content.

A few high level thoughts/data points:

• Amazing that Wikipedia was launched in 2001 (in the thick of the dot com crash). Wales said the tough economic times drove a lot of the innovation behind the genesis of the site.
• "Most brands have been afraid to be associated with user generated content." This is changing with growth/penetration of YouTube, Wikia and Wikipedia content.
• "Online advertising has gone down the rathole of direct response marketing.'
• Brands might want to start taking a look at advertising against user generated content.

Oops... gotta run to my next meeting. For a continuation of this and other Ad:Tech activity (#AdTech), go here for the live search feed.

Experts in the Industry: Bryan Person (76 of 45)

Let me start by saying that I know I've skipped a couple on entries in the Experts in the Industry series. That's not by mistake. It's so that my good friend, Bryan Person, can have the number that coincides with his birth year. I figure that this is my blog so I can do stuff like that.

Obviously if I'm willing to make such important sacrafices for Bryan -- who is the social media evangelist at LiveWord btw -- he's a fairly important dude. Or at least he is a friend that is worth bending the rules for. Given the fact that he was one of about a dozen reasons as to why I decided to move to Austin, I'd say he's worth it.

By way of history, Bryan and I first met on Twitter via mutual friend, Peter Himler. I was looking for someone to do some podcast production for me and Bryan was the guy that fit that bill. Subsequently, Bryan became a client of my old company, Mzinga (he was at Monster.com at the time) and we started getting together regularly for morning coffee since we lived in adjacent towns. Since then, we've roomed at Community 2.0 together, podcasted together, hung out for coffee, dinner, lunch, drinks etc. And as I metioned earlier, we both live in Austin. Yup, I'm a big fan.

Before I give Bryan too big a head, let's get on to his questions:

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
In many ways, online community and social media are a natural evolution of what I've been advocating for years -- using online tools to communicate when face-to-face conversation just isn't practical or efficient (I was in BBS chat rooms in the mid-90s and using IM to connect to prospective students for our study abroad program in my first professional job a few years after that). But my true "light bulb moment" with what we now call social media really occurred in the spring of 2005, when I discovered podcasting. Geek News Central with Todd Cochrane and For Immediate Release with Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson were two of my early favorites (I still listen to FIR every Monday and Thursday). The shows offered rich, niche content that was relevant to me, that I could listen to on a portable device whenever I pleased (hello, mp3 player!), and that came right into my podcatcher when a new episode was published (hello, RSS!). Plus, the hosts of both shows were so welcoming and quickly built up a community of like-minded listeners. That's the essence of social media, and I've been hooked ever since.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
Not that they necessarily need the money, but I'd invest the $10 million in the Boston Red Sox, the baseball team to which I've pledged my lifetime allegiance. The club and Major League Baseball are already doing some good "social" projects online -- fan communities, connecting on Twitter, etc. -- but I have a few more ideas kicking around in my brain that I'd be happy to tell them about.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
John Wood. His book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, is an inspiration. Since 2000, John's Room to Read organization has built more than 7,000 libraries for children in developing countries around the globe. He's this century's Andrew Carnegie!

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
Not a chance; I can't think of anything less compelling than a community based entirely around a commodity consumer product. But ... what if a toothpaste maker hosted or sponsored an community around raising healthy kids? Now that might be interesting.  

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
For marketers: When a company -- either yours or one you're reaching out to -- is slow to adopt social media, don't become overly criticial. Have patience with that reluctant executive. Consider it a golden opportunity to continue to share best practices and success stories from other organizations. Change will come.

Bryan is @BryanPerson on Twitter.

Experts in the Industry: Shiv Singh (74 of 45)

Today, we get to meet one of my favorite people in the social media space, Shiv Singh. In addition to being a new daddy (congratulations), Shiv is also the global VP of social media for Razorfish. In case that wasn't enough to do, he's also an active blogger and twitter enthusiast.

I've actually known Shiv for a few years now as he was kind enough to come and speak at some of the events for Shared Insights (now part of IIR USA) on portal technology. Since then, I've bumped into Shiv at other events like Office 2.0 and try and keep in touch with him semi-regularly on Twitter and e-mail. Given how long he's been involved in Web 2.0 and social media and the level of clients he gets to talk to on an ongoing basis, why wouldn't I want to stay in contact with such a bright guy?

With that said, let's hear from Shiv:

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
Got into the world of online community originally through my experiences on The Well back in 1995 and 1996. This led me to starting an online community for my high school alma mater (which interestingly has the reputation of being one of the four most powerful alumni networks in the world according to The Economist Magazine). From there one thing led to another and at Razorfish (where I’ve been 10 years) I’ve advised clients in community building and social media on both sides of the firewall – getting employees to collaborate and communicate with each other and on the consumer side building customer communities and helping brands market on social networks and across the social influence marketing landscape.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of "social," which company would it be and why?
If I could invest in one company and only one company, it would be Ning. I think they’re doing an incredible job, have the right philosophies (open standards, cross-integration, letting a thousand flowers blossom philosophy) and have made their platform simple and accessible. There’s so much more that they could be doing though and I think $10million would help them a lot and serve to deliver the kind of value that companies and individuals want but aren’t getting from any other platform.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
There’s no shortage of business leaders and public figures that I learn from everyday. I suppose I’m currently watching Malcolm Gladwell, Duncan Watts, Seth Godin and Tom Peters a lot. I’m drawing inspiration and practical insights from them these days. They’re sharp, pithy and are basing their insights either in rigorous research or in deep experience. I suppose in another month it’ll be a different set of people. That’s how it is for me.

And yes, there’s a fifth person too – the anonymous crowds which makes its voice heard often. The meta influence of the crowds is definitely influencing and inspiring me in different ways.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
No. Sorry, but I belong to more than enough communities and I’m simply not passionate about toothpaste. I need to nurture the relationships in my existing communities or leave some of them.

Freeform – here's where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
It’s great to see the social space finally growing up but there’s more maturing that needs to happen. Marketers and businesses are still struggling how to take advantage of social media in a measurable, ROI driven business centric sense. I think we will all benefit if there was a little less hyperbole. Nevertheless, social and social influence marketing is transformative and I believe the best is yet to come.

Experts in the Industry: Kenny Tomlin (73 of 45)

Kenny Tomlin, President & CEO Rockfish Interactive, is one of the rare few in my Experts in the Industry series that I don't know that well. But when my friend John Andrews of Walmart tells me that I need to include Kenny because he's the principal of "the hottest digital/social agency in the nation," who am I to argue?

Fortunately, Kenny and I now follow each other on Twitter and I will be adding the Rockfish blog to my reader later today. In the meantime, let's all get to know Kenny a little better based on his answers to THE five questions:

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
In the late 90’s I built an on-line social community for real estate agents (though we didn’t call it a social community at the time). About the same time I launched an ecommerce site that we grew utilizing much of what today would be considered social media marketing.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
Based on their use of social, then I would have to invest in Amazon. They invented how most ecommerce companies today create social community on their sites and they continue to innovate as evidenced by their “See a Kindle in Your City” program. Then, I would donate all the profits from the investment in Amazon to Kiva. They have done a great job using social media to enlarge our view the world along with practical and easy ways to make a difference. One of the most powerful yet underdeveloped uses of social media is it’s power to be used for good.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
Historically, Abraham Lincoln. Contemporary, Rick Warren. Whether you agree with his spiritual views or not, Rick is one of the most innovative and brilliant marketers of our time. (The Purpose Driven Life is still today the most effective social marketing strategy ever executed in my opinion). In addition, he built one of the largest churches in the U.S., authored the best selling hardback book of all time, gives 90% of his money away, and now is focused on global issues with his P.E.A.C.E. Plan.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
No. I don’t have the expertise to contribute or the passion on the subject to eavesdrop and learn.

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
The entire world, with one small exception, is composed of other people. The social web gives us an opportunity to connect and learn from them like never before.

April 15: Weekly Content/Social Marketing Links

As I mentioned in our first Weekly Content/Social Marketing Links post, I've asked the Powered marketing, business development and product teams to pick one news article, blog post or research report a week that "speaks" to them. With that article, they need to come to our weekly staff meeting prepared to give a 120 second update on what the article was about and why they found it useful.

My goal is to share this content on a weekly basis. Here's what our third week netted:

DP Rabalais (marketing):

I’ve decided that since I like to travel and have an upcoming vacation on my mind, that I’d stick with that industry for the entire month of April. Today’s article is titled, Travel Brands Lacking in Social Media Activity – it is the result of a an article written by Peter Kim titled A List of Social Media Marketing Examples.

Both articles take a look at brands that are using social marketing and to what degree: the Peter Kim article could be of interest to Sales since it outlines the Social activities of over 300 brands.
 

Jay MacIntosh (business development):

I’m sharing the highest of highlights from Web 2.0 (i.e. phrases I highlighted from my written notes):

• Session titled “Why Social Media Marketing Fails” led by Owyang, Charlene Li and Peter Kim. For a thorough review go here.  That said, here are the sound bites that stood out for me: “Don’t think of SM as a campaign, it’s about building relationships…what kind of relationship do I have today, what kind of relationship do I want to build?” “Understand your purpose with metrics…either activity which is analytics or biz metrics which are outcomes” “One large financial services firm decided they weren’t going to allow employees to engage in conversations with customers, therefore, Charlene’s recommendation was don’t do community/social.” “The most common reason for not doing community/social is executives don’t trust employees to engage in customer conversations!” “Does SM matter today? No. Will it? Yes, it will matter a whole lot because humans are and always will be social beings…we’re just having trouble adapting to these new tools/technologies.”
• Session on measurement. “½ -2 % of people in social networking sites are “answer people” which you gotta have if you want discussions taking place on your community. Find ways to identify, recognize and encourage these people.” “Social media is about collective action…and why does this matter for businesses? Businesses are effectively conversations and measuring conversations is about measuring the context in which the conversations arise.” “If discussion is important to your community make sure you design it for at least audiences 1) the ½-2 % answer people and 2) everyone else. And make sure you validate people’s roles in the community because they value it (i.e. validation).”
• Session on Ford’s use of content in SM. “Ford wanted to make storytelling for the consumer easy and they did this by enabling them with content to help them tell stories…Monty used the term “democratize the content” “Overall approach to SM at Ford is that it’s not a campaign, it’s about ongoing engagement.” “When asked how measure the ROI…sometimes answer with the question of how do you measure the ROI of phones, email, wearing pants to the office…hard to measure but he guarantees that all have a positive impact on your business!” “Fords vision for SM is to be one of the world’s leading social brands.” “We use the Sharepoint platform from Microsoft for our technology.”
• Guy from Digg discussing how publishers can integrate with social networks. “Some interesting stats on Facebook…the average user has 120 friends. Of those approx 1/3 will see a Newsfeed item with anywhere from 0.8 – 2 clicking through to the item of interest. TechCrunch experienced a 100% growth in registrations when they implemented Facebook connect. Others like Telegraph, The Onion, Time, etc. saw registrations rise at least 30% with Facebook Connect.”
• John Maeda the president of Rhode Island School of Design. “Electrons travel at lightspeed…people don’t”
• Head of Microsoft Business Software unit. “Sharepoint is a social computing platform for within the enterprise…”
• CTO of Bluestatedigital (the tech company behind the Obama social campaign). “ They sent 71B emails, had 200k offline events planned via the site, 14.5M YouTube viewing HOURS, $770M raised of which 65% occurred online.” “They accomplished this by driving ACTION. Email was the thing that had the biggest impact in terms of opt-ins and donations. The way to get advocacy is to create ownership. For example, as opposed to just having donors ask others to donate, they allowed individuals to create a personal fundraising page with goal, personal commentary, etc. along with tools to then easily contact friends and family to “support” their cause.” “Email is still king…1) There’s not too much email, just too much unwanted email 2) Nobody reads newsletters (give soundbites with links to more) 3) Give more than you ask 4) Your list isn’t an ATM machine, but if you deliver good/relevant content it can be very effective.” “70% of all actions on the site came from 10% of the members. Segment user/member types by pyramid and develop ways to get people to move up the pyramid.” “#1 fundraiser for the campaign was Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican convention. Within a 24 hour period they had anticipated how their users would react to her and via the site and email rallied people with content and calls-to-action which generated $11M” “Measure everything and test what works good, better, best…for example they had a few different email concepts on one topic…the good email achieved a 30% open rate the lesser had an open rate of 15%. Try and test different content and see what works!” “Biggest unexpected lesson learned is that it’s important not to underestimate what people will do if you provide them with info and tools.”

Doug Wick: (business development):

This is a great article by Chris Kenton (originally published in the CMO Council’s “Marketing Magnified”) that describes at a strategic level the drivers behind marketing measurability, and settles on the biggest impact social marketing has – the effect on intangible assets like goodwill and brand equity. This article shows that path that connects the value of social marketing to the executive suite.  

Bill Fanning: (business development):

This article was written by Adam Weinroth, product manager at Pluck, last week.  The title is “How to craft a social media plan that connects.”  The article emphasizes the fact that there is no “one size fits all” social media plan for all brands.  To demonstrate the point, he outlines 5 tips for strengthening online growth through social media and references examples for each.  The high level points and examples are (check out the article for the details).

1.       Know your audience

a.       Scotts

2.       Get real

a.       Kodak

                                                                i.      A Thousand Words

                                                               ii.      Plugged In

3.       Provide relevant content

a.       Whole Foods

4.       Drive community back to you

a.       Dunkin’ Donuts

5.       Leverage social syndication

a.       eHow 

It’s important to note that before you begin thinking about the technology and content needed to connect with a particular segment, you must first understand why you want to connect with them.  Are you trying to drive customer acquisition, build brand loyalty, listen to the community or some combination of the three?  Answering these questions first will start you on the right path to building a comprehensive strategy that not only addresses how to connect with your segment (as outlined above) but also how to achieve your business / marketing objectives once you have them engaged (intelligent merchandising or driving specific calls to action etc.) and how to measure the success of the program in order to continually optimize effectiveness.  This is the difference between a Social Media Plan and a Social Marketing Strategy.

Beth Lopez (marketing):
On vacation this week. 

Don Sedota (product management):

This is another product management related article but I thought it was timely given PM’s recent effort to make product strategy a more collaborative effort and to enhance the level of documentation available per product releases. The article, entitled How to Turn Sales Engineers into Your Biggest Fans, is geared towards the information flow between PM and Sales but the article can easily be applied to AM, Content, Ops, Tech Services, etc. as well.

The author offers the following (selected) advice for PMs in making key business groups more a part of product strategy and release processes and enabling them to do their jobs better:

• Transparency (builds trust)
  o Clear feature selection process for each release
  o Provide the “why” behind features
  o Share the roadmap
  o Solicit customer/prospect input and involve business groups in product direction
• Formal Process (sets expectations and provides consistency)
  o Involve key business groups in release cycle
  o Clear and transparent enhancement request process
• Transference
  o Provide sufficient documentation so that business groups can be self-sufficient in certain situations
  o Provide performance data via efficacy reports, case studies, etc.
  o Competitive data
  o Training

It will obviously take a while before we are hitting on all cylinders for all of this, but I’m excited that we’ve recently started improvement initiatives across many of these facets and that we seem to be heading in the right direction.

Experts in the Industry: Aronado Placencia (72 of 45)

Heh heh... Mr. Aronado. Your time has finally come. After a couple of interviews with you on Lucky Startup (now StartupLucky), it's nice to be able to return the favor. For anyone that's not familar with @Aronado - his moniker on Twitter, he's a pretty funny dude. He's also one of the hardest working guys in the socialsphere.

I first met Aronado about a year ago via Twitter when he regularly told me that I should hire him. While I wasn't able to make that happen, I appreciated his persistence. Fortunately for him, he's ended up in a better place running his own gig at StartupLucky, a company that focuses on "connecting startups with education, inspiration, & funding." They also do a kick ass set of interviews on their show.

With that as a backdrop, let's hear how Aronado answered the five questions in the Experts in the Industry series:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
I give startups a free & live platform to pitch their ideas/concepts to investors, customers, and potential business partners.  I am good at it because, I have been rejected over & over & over and know exactly what these guys are going through. 

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
After owning two brick and morter businesses ( a restaurant, Daddio's Superior Bar & Grill and a Real Estate company, Xponential Exclusive Properties)  I thought, my God, if there is a way I can create a business online and work from anywhere in the world, I am IN.  So, I jumped in. 

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
Probably Zappos a few years back.  Why? because they have immersed themselves in the social space and individually the employees have the freedom to be "themselves".  This is HUGE and, obviously, it has worked. 

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
President Obama...c'mon! This man has stepped into the shittiest job in America in terms of how things were handed to him.  He has rolled up his sleeves and he is DOing what he thinks is right. 

# Would you join a toothpaste community? Why? 
No, because I really don't care that much about toothpaste.  I mean I use it but...

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
Look, we're all learning here.  All I want to say is repeat after me: 

"My goal is to be as "ME" as I can be"  Nothing more, nothing less, just be who you are in any space.

Experts in the Industry: Christine Perkett (71 of 45)

We were lucky enough to have one of Christine Perkett's colleagues, Lisa Dilg, as the 8th interviewee in the Experts in the Interview series. To this date, Lisa's interview is still one of the most visited in the series. So what I'm wondering is if we can create a friendly rivalry between two very smart, well-connected and savvy PR women who truly understand how to tap into the power of social...

Before we get started, a little background on Christine. I first met her along with my old boss, Barry Libert, at the California Pizza Kitchen back in the summer of 2007. We were thinking about using Christine's company, Perkett, as our PR firm (Christine is the founder and president of Perkett). For anyone that's ever met Barry, he's a big thinker and can be a little overwhelming in a first interview. Fortunately for Christine, she's cool and calm under pressure and was able to roll with the punches. Ever since then, I've had an appreciation of Christine and how hard she works.

Now onto the questions:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
I help people successfully connect and communicate with their core audiences – person-to-person, business to customer, brand to consumer, etc. - and I’m good at it because I listen first.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
I’d say my first foray into online community came through working with clients - as far back as a decade ago - that connected users with other users in more interactive ways. It wasn’t called “online community” then but in essence it was. For example, clients such as Salesnet (now RightNow) – which used SaaS to connect sales executives for sharing best practices and defining methodologies - were the first of their kind to recognize the value in adding community and social aspects to an otherwise anti-social business process.  

I also worked with plenty of start-ups in the 90s that created social and community aspects around everything from online swaps to dating to gift exchange. Unfortunately, most of them were ahead of their time.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
Oh that’s tough. The popular answer would of course be Twitter or Facebook or some other entity already proven to be well accepted and on its way to success. But I thrive on innovation and intelligent risk - it’s why I love working with start ups! I’m close with an entrepreneur who built and sold a successful company in the last boom and who has several other brilliant ideas. Although I can’t share yet, one of those ideas combines community, user-generated content, video and Digg-like voting in a way that no one’s yet delivered. Oh it’s so cool! It’s like those old “choose your own ending” books with video. I’d invest my dollars there, absolutely.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
I found this question particularly difficult, as so many of our public figures have let us down lately. I can’t truly say there is one I most respect – I’ve never been much of a “favorites” type of person. But I have to say I really respect Hillary Clinton. Not from a political standpoint – I’ve never voted for her and I actually hate politics, but from the viewpoint of a strong and resilient, assertive woman. Personally, she’s proud of who she is and doesn’t apologize for it no matter what the naysayers throw at her; she kept her private decisions private during a very painful and public intrusion in her life, and she rebounded. In her career she’s also had disappointments but she didn’t let them stop her from embracing other opportunities – she didn’t win the Oval Office (this time) but she accepted her current position as Secretary of State with grace, poise and commitment. She possesses some admirable qualities that more of us could embrace or learn from: strength, pride, commitment, grace, tenacity, poise, forgiveness, loyalty and resiliency.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
No, but I would follow a toothpaste brand who had interesting or entertaining content to share on Twitter, or perhaps join their Facebook fan page if they delivered compelling reasons to do so. Come meet me – and engage with me – where I already am. Otherwise, I have to track too many communities. Thus, Twitter’s brilliance.

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
Hmmm so many topics…. So little time. Okay here are a few things:

• The social media Kool-Aid….there are way too many people enamored with the new wave of “social media experts.” Just because someone tells you they can set up a Facebook fan page, capture video or understand Twitter doesn’t mean they are going to help you make the most of these communities. I think “expert” goes way beyond that – do they know how to deliver compelling messages and content through these tools? Are they able to teach you who to engage with and how to create relationships? Do they understand why you want to be a part of communities – is it personal, business, both? Can they clearly and succinctly explain the ROI and value to those they are trying to teach – whether it’s an individual like an author or a jeweler, or a business selling enterprise software? The SME moniker is overused, abused and tiring.
• PR is not dead. I don’t care how great social media is. Like I said, you can use as many tools as you like. You can record as many videos as the next guy. But unless the messaging is compelling and it’s reaching the right audience – thus making an impact – it’s a moot point. PR will always have a seat at the table – social media is just forcing the good PR up and the bad PR out. And it’s about time!
• The economy is tough for most everyone right now. So many articles talk about the employees laid off or the bad leaders who got us into this mess. What about the good leaders – small business owners for example - who are forced to make tough decisions to keep their business alive? It’s not easy – or fun – for them either. People tend to overlook that or make it personal.
• People are very passive/aggressive in social media. Watching the behavior – and the underlying messages – is absolutely fascinating. I can’t wait to see the fallout of the madness and where everyone lands.
• I’m glad I met you, worked with you and that we’ve stayed in touch. Thanks for this opportunity, Aaron. [AWS: Same back atcha Chris!]

If you are looking for Christine on Twitter, her handle is @MissusP.

Ad Age's Five New Rules

Wow. I’ve always admired Ad Age but part of me has always had a problem with their “advertising-centric” focus. I know, not surprising for a publication that has the word “advertising” in it. And don’t get me wrong, editors Abbey Klaassen and Jack Neff definitely dish some serious “social” but a post by Neff today really made me stand up and take notice. 

The article talks about Simon Clift, CMO of Unilever, and his warning to marketers that “ Brands aren't simply brands anymore. They are the center of a maelstrom of social and political dialogue made possible by digital media” at Ad Age’s Digital Conference last week. Clift went on to state that marketers that don’t “adapt their marketing… are in grave peril.” But what impressed me more was Neff’s “five rules” at the end of the article. A sign that not only are main stream companies but also main stream publications are starting to understand the transformational movement that’s now underway. 

My favorite rules out of the five are easily numbers two and five but I really like all of them: 

1. Listening to consumers is more important than talking at them. As Mr. Clift said, "We may be ahead of our competitors, but we're most definitely behind consumers." The consumer is not a moron, she's the person defining your brand.\
2. You can't hide the corporation behind the brand anymore -- or even fully separate the two. Even this editor's creaking computer only took 0.13 seconds to show that Philip Morris is owned by Altria Group. Welcome to radical transparency, where bad corporate behavior will damage your brands, and vice versa.
3. PR is a primary concern for every CMO and brand manager. If "marketing" and "PR" are not the same department, tear down the wall. Spend time deciding whether PR is underleveraged in your organization.
4. Cause marketing isn't about philanthropy, it's about "enlightened self-interest," as Mr. Clift puts it. That doesn't mean it doesn't count. Don't be ashamed of your profit motive, because great branding and doing good are increasingly one and the same.
5. Social media is not a strategy. You need to understand it, and you'll need to deploy it as a tactic. But remember that the social graph just makes it even more important that you have a good product. Put another way: The volume and quality of your earned media will be directly proportional to the impact and quality of your product and ideas.
   

Experts in the Industry: Peter Shankman (70 of 45)

Oh where to start with Mr. Peter Shankman aka @SkyDiver... Well for one, I am a true admirer of the brilliant work he's done with his Help a Reporter Out (HARO) service. If you're not familiar with it, Peter puts out an e-mail three times a day that plays matchmaker between reporters looking for sources/experts for articles and blogs and volunteers that are willing to act as the aforementioned sources/experts. Last I checked, I think Peter said that he had over 75,000 people signed up (Wow!)

I'm also indebted to Peter for sending hundreds of new followers my way after mentioning me as someone to follow on one of his daily HARO reports. For that reason, I was particularly pleased to have the opportunity to meet Peter face to face at the recent SXSW/Mashable party my company, Powered, sponsored (thank you for the introduction Susan Bratton).

With that as a backdrop, here are Peter's answers to the five Experts in the Industry questions:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.

When you find that you've really good at talking to simply EVERYONE, you find a way to help people and make money by doing it.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
I've had a blog for years, and ran a PR firm for years prior that catered almost exclusively to web and online companies. Hell, I was one of the first editors of the AOL Newsroom - I was in online and social back in 1995.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
I would invest in a company that took all the current networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) and aggregated them into ONE useful network that could tell me what all my friends/colleagues were doing in one place. Barring that, I'd invest in a company called Social Studies, which helps schoolkids learn that posting something online means it's public forever. (Company doesn't exist, but it should.)

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
Richard Branson continues to do his thing, do it well, and not give a damn what other people think. I envy that.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why? 
I'm a lifelong member of www.dropzone.com - I already have. When you're passionate about something, it's worth the join. We live as a society built on passion.

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
We could be such a smarter and better society if we counted to three before doing 99% of the things we do.

April 10: Weekly Content/Social Marketing Links

As I mentioned in my last Weekly Content/Social Marketing Links post, I've asked the Powered marketing, business development and product teams to pick one news article, blog post or research report a week that "speaks" to them. With that article, they need to come to our weekly staff meeting prepared to give a 120 second update on what the article was about and why they found it useful.

My goal is to share this content on a weekly basis. Here's what our second week netted:

DP Rabalais (marketing):

My article from the Marketing Leadership Council talks about how several mega brands are incorporating social media into their overall marketing strategy.
Topics included in the article are:

• Growth of Social Networks
• Demographics of Social Networking Site Users
• Implications of Social Networking Sites for Marketing

Key Objectives Companies had for integrating social media site into their marketing mix are:

1. Improve Customer Understanding
2. Promote Issues of Social Concern
3. Promote Products and Services
4. Facilitate Internal Knowledge Sharing
5. Increase Brand Awareness

Note: this is from a PDF downloaded from the Marketing Leadership Council's site. If you're really interested in the article and don't have a subscription, e-mail me and I might be able to send you a copy. [aaron DOT strout AT powered DOT com]

Jay MacIntosh (business development):

This week's article titled, Social Media vs. Email  written by the CEO of an email service provider proposes that email doesn’t/won’t work with the under 35 crowd....perhaps he’s right? However, his theory got me wondering why is it that when a new medium comes on the scene people diminish the use/importance of the previous one(s)? Whether the medium is stylus and paper, Gutenberg’s printing press, radio, telephone, television, instant messaging, social networks, etc. aren’t all of these just different ways in which people communicate?

The core issue isn’t so much print vs. digital or broadcast vs. direct response, or face-to-face vs. video conferencing, etc. Rather it’s given the target audience and objectives, what’s the most cost-effective medium (or combination of mediums…aka integrated marketing) to increase the “signal-to-noise” ratio? This is what marketers care about (or at least should) and why managed online communities are an extremely cost-effective medium with a very high “signal-to-noise” ratio.

Doug Wick: (business development):

My choice for this week's post is from Adam Cohen’s blog. The title of the post is Social Media Impacts the Purchase Path. I liked this post because it’s relevant to our ROI discussion as well as the "ecommerce" focus that many of our prospects and customers take when it comes to "social."

One area where I disagree slightly with Adam is on his argument that purchase consideration is the easiest way to measure performance of social media on third party sites. While I agree that it might be the "easiest," my belief is that most third party sites aren’t optimized to capture people in buying mode, whereas other online spends like search placements are. So if you measure social media the way you measure other media you are setting yourself up for failure. 

Of course, social media on third party sites is very different from social media on branded sites. I describe this a bit in the comments.

Bill Fanning:  (business development):
My post for this week from Mediapost is titled Critics Of Influencer Model are Missing The Boat . It’s an interesting look at the definition of market “influencers”. It does a good job of categorizing and defining the 5 different types of influencers. Because of the internet and the ability of everyday people to give their opinions, the masses have become the most important influencer category. While the traditional influencers are still important, companies no longer need to rely on them to get the word out. Word of mouth from the masses of everyday people have become the most important “influencer” category.

This certainly validates our Facebook connect integration with our platform. If used properly, this will serve as a major traffic driver to the communities we build in the future. It also validates our own marketing efforts. While it’s important to reach out to the major analyst influencers like Gartner and Forrester, we are doing a good job of reaching out our own group of influencers to get them talking, growing our webinar participation with everyday influencers exponentially, and focusing on getting involved with the smaller social media and marketing groups regionally. This will take time, but we’ve come a long way over the last several months.

Beth Lopez:
My submission this week is not a blog article but a Forrester report called Social Brand Strategy by Lisa Bradner. The premise of this report (will be available on Powered.com soon) revolves around how to create a successful brand-centric social media strategy and what companies and CMO's must do to engage consumers with their brands.  While the report discusses in context of social media, it does contain validating points that we talk of in sales situations:

1. Think strategically about social media and social marketing
2. Understand who your target is, how that target seeks to engage, and the role that distinct social media channels play in their brand experience.
3. Turn off the reach and frequency blinders - marketers need to spend more time thinking about preference and loyalty than awareness.
4. Give brand advocates tools to evangelize and reasons to get involved!
   

Trey Anderson: (product management):

Forbes carried an article from the CMO council titled Turning Customer Pain into Customer Gain. While I like the article a lot, the title is a bit misleading as the majority of the article covers the increasing need to manage customer experience (being custom centric) and the affinity this creates.  The premise is that CMO’s should take ownership of the customer experience.  It goes on to explain that customer experience should be leveraged to develop affinity and that affinity is the key to driving business performance through word-of-mouth (referring customers) and loyalty (additional customer purchases).  It continues to discuss the challenge’s CMO face:

• Regardless of the fact that 59% of companies have a CEO driven customer centric culture, actions display a lack of execution
• Lack of accountability
• The difficulties associated with implementing the necessary lines of communication across all business units, partners, and channels

 It paints a nice picture for our business:

• Affinity, brand perception, retention, and Net Promoter scopes are critical metrics for driving business objectives through word-of-mouth and brand loyalty
• It is difficult and expensive for brands to implement across all business units, partners, and channels
• We can impact these same metrics in a fraction of the time and cost

Don Sedota (product management):

My post comes from ReadWriteWeb and is entitled Community Building 101 for the Bootstrapped Startup.  The post focuses on a four month old financial news community called Tip’d that has risen to success in a very short period of time. The secret to their success... "There really isn't any secret to our success. In fact, it's community building 101 in the truest sense. Instead of focusing on ourselves, we're focusing on what the financial blogosphere (i.e. the content creators) wants, and what the financial news readership (i.e. the content consumers) wants."

The article goes on to talk about some of the compelling features they’ve implemented. This may be an obvious strategy (focus on customer needs) but one that is commonly overlooked for the sake of implementing the latest and greatest technologies that might not be in the best interest of the customer. Definitely advice that we can all take to heart and especially interesting to me as a product manager in that customer feedback/needs should always be first and foremost when formulating product strategy. 

Upcoming Conferences: Where to Find me in April-June

Yup, it's that time of the year again. Conference time. We got things kicked off last month with SXSW and now we're on to some of the "less networking/more learning" type conferences. While I'd like to get to a whole lot more, this is about all my work/personal life/mental health can handle for the time being.

• Inbound Marketing Summit, SanFrancisco, CA April 28-29th (speaking)
• AV Marketing Roundtable - Creative Ideas to Stretch Your Marketing Budget, Austin, TX April 30 (speaking/sponsoring)
• Community 2.0, San Francisco, CA May 11-13 (attending/podcasting/blogging)
  NOTE: I have deep discount passes. Use code: GSTM2105AS when you register for $600 off.
• Corporate Communication & Technology Conference, New York, NY  May 15-16 (speaking)
• Inbound Marketing Summit, Dallas, TX May 27-28 (speaking/sponsoring)
  
• BlogPotomac, Washington, DC June 12 (attending/podcasting/blogging)

Which conferences are you attending in the next three months? Is there one that I don't have on the list that is a MUST attend?

Photo Credit: John Federico

Experts in the Industry: Ken Burbary (69 of 45)

Here are just a few words I would use to describemy friend, Ken Burbary, VP of digital at Big Communications... smart, thoughtful, sports enthusiast, late. Doh! [Sorry Ken, I couldn't resist that last one]. Seriously though, Ken is one of those people that I've enjoyed following and chatting with on Twitter over the last couple of years. I was also fortunate enough to meet Ken when he came to Boston last fall when we held a tweetup in his honor.

Before I make Ken's answers to the Experts in the Industry series questions any later, let's see what he had to say:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
I help companies navigate an incredibly complex online world to improve their online marketing, advertising and communication efforts. I focus on helping them develop the strategies and capabilities needed to do so. I'm a natural teacher, and get satisfaction from showing others "how to fish", and then watching them move forward successfully.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
I've been involved long before we referred to it by those names. Basically, I'm a Digital native. I have my dad to thank for being an early adopter, and bringing some of the earliest personal computers into our house. I was an avid user of bulletin board systems in the 1980s, Compuserve, Prodigy, and then eventually AOL. All of that time online, interacting with others, eventually led me to the online marketing and advertising industry in the early 1990s. I'm hooked on it, and can't imagine doing anything else. Since then I've done corporate web marketing, some consulting and spent most of my time at agencies big and small.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
Easy answer. Zappos. Any company that is as focused on serving the customer as Zappos is will succeed in the marketplace, regardless of what they are selling. People remember how you made them feel. Zappos customers feel good about their interaction with the company, and that builds a strong relationship (aka loyal customer).

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
Bill Gates. Refrain from rolling your eyes and hear me out first. He is an incredibly successful business leader (currently the wealthiest individual on the plant to be exact), and yet he also possesses a sense of social responsibility that we see in so few people in similar positions. What he and his wife are doing with the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation is a shining example of philanthropic work. He places a strong emphasis on the notion that everyone has equal value. He has given back a large part of his success (money and time) for the benefit of others. I respect his accomplishments and would like to see these qualities in more of our business, political or public leaders.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
Yes, I absolutely would. If only to learn what actually happens in a toothpaste community so I could finally answer the question you've been asking for almost a year now. ;-)

In all seriousness, I don't have any personal interest in joining one but could probably learn more about online communities if I did join, even if it comes from one focused on toothpaste. I'm a optimist and try to see the positive in things.

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
I debated coming up with something nifty to say here but instead want to thank the people that I have had the benefit of learning from, collaborating with, and allowed me to develop friendships that I cherish. This is hardly a comprehensive list (too many people to thank) but the people I frequently look to for guidance and/or inspiration when navigating the social space are Adam Cohen, Blagica Bottigliero, Damian Rintelmann, Amber Naslund, David Armano, Scott Monty, and YOU Mr. Strout. Thanks a million everyone!!

Experts in the Industry: Dave Evans (68 of 45)

What can I tell you about Mr. Evans. Well, for starters he has one of the best background photos on his Twitter page EVER [hint: think Whole Food's "Miles of Chocolate"]. In a more official capacity, Dave is a big brain in the social space and has been thinking about all things digital for a while now. In addition to being the author of the book, Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day, Dave is also a principal at Digital Voodoo and writer for ClickZ.

Having followed Dave on Twitter for a while (note, he's @evansdave), it was a pleasure to finally meet him in person down in Austin. Fortunately for me, Dave lives down here so we get together semi-regularly for coffee with a group of other smart folks like Bryan Person, Peter Kim, Heather Strout, Tim Walker, Jackie Huba, Paul May, Kyle Flaherty, Ben McConnell, Kate Niederhoffer, John Johansen and Sara Dornsife.

But enough about coffee and chocolate though, let's get on to Dave's answers:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
I work with marketing and operations professionals interested in applying social media based concepts. I am good at this because I have direct experience in ops (Product Management, Progressive Insurance), marketing and advertising (Interactive Strategy Director, GSD&M), and a passion for understanding the fundamental issues (BS, Physic and Mathematics.)

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
I was involved with advergaming and decided to pursue non-interruptive forms of media. That led me to Web 2.0 and the Social Web as a business platform.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
Powered, of course! Quite seriously, it was through my work with Powered and its predecessor, Not Harvard, that much of my quantitative thinking around social media and its application to business developed. Clearly, the company has “social” in its DNA.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos. Tony has been built an amazing company, in a segment (online shoe sales) that few thought possible, and fundamentally positioned the firm for success via social media by aligning his people with his customer’s best interests.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
Yes, absolutely. One of the best jobs I ever had was as a Product Manager for Progressive Insurance. They recruited me from Jet Propulsion Labs where I was working in Mission Control on the Voyager Spacecraft. My initial inclination was to say “no way” -- I mean, how do you go from rocket scientist to insurance guy? But I interviewed anyway, based on what I’d learned about the company. The ten (yes, 10!) people who interviewed me were among the smartest, brightest, and engaged people I’d ever met. I took the job--opening up the business offices in Austin, TX--and proceeded to learn how business actually worked. One of the best decisions of my life.

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
The Social Web is, to me, the dream of Tim Berners Lee come true: “An interactive sea of shared knowledge… to bring our friends and colleagues closer (so) that by working on this knowledge together we can come to better understandings.”

Experts in the Industry: Connie Reece (67 of 45)

Is there a more colorful person in the socialsphere than Connie Reece? I got to find out in person for the first time a few weeks ago at my first Social Media Club, Austin meeting where Connie and I were able to connect in person after following each other on Twitter for a while.

In addition to colorful, Connie is also charming, funny and stoic. If you haven't met Connie yet, she's a co-founder & advisory board of the Social Media Club and founder of Every Dot Connects.

So how did such a cool and wonderful person answer the Experts in the Industry questions? Let's find out:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you're good at it.
I teach companies how to communicate conversationally and how to use social technologies to leverage those conversational skills into relationship building with constituents--both internally and externally. I'm a naturally gifted teacher and lifelong learner who is passionate about using my knowledge to connect people, ideas and causes. (Okay, that was two sentences. Go ahead and count off, but I didn't want to risk writing a run-on sentence and having the grammar police come after me.)

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
I'm a "seasoned citizen," not one of the so-called digital natives who grew up in the personal computer era. So before there was such a thing as the World Wide Web, I was using online tools for research as well as connecting with others. My old 300-baud dial-up modem should be in a museum somewhere, along with my Kaypro II suitcase computer (26 pounds) that I lugged self-importantly to clients' offices to demonstrate my prowess with technology.

My experience as a professional writer and communicator, along with a background in direct marketing and direct mail fund-raising with a bit of PR thrown in, made it easy for me to transition into the world of social media and community building. My skill set is all about connections through communication. Emerging technologies have simply enabled those connections to be made much faster and to a greater scale.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of "social," which company would it be and why?
Twitter, or another microblogging/presence app I thought had the potential to knock Twitter out of its number one position. I was an early adopter (January 2007) and have watched as users tried out each new service that came along--Pownce, Jaiku, Plurk--and then came right back to Twitter because of its simplicity and because that's where they have built their network.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
I won't single one out, but I have a great respect for entrepreneurs. They work hard, take great risks to turn dreams into reality, and they create jobs that fuel the economy. Most of them are overtaxed and underappreciated.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
Yes, if it were a specialty toothpaste. I have Sjogren's Syndrome, which causes extreme dryness. So I have done a lot of online research and even participated in forums where people discuss various products that help relieve dry eyes and dry mouth. I've used about every artificial tear product on the market, and even special toothpastes and chewing gums. So if a toothpaste company built a community that created value for me in terms of information, product sourcing, and cost savings, I'd join.

Freeform – here's where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
If you guzzle the social media Kool-Aid rather than taking small sips, you'll contract a bad case of Shiny Object Syndrome and become totally ineffective. Remember that it's not about the technology, it's about people. Develop your people skills first, then master the social media tools.

Experts in the Industry: John Andrews (66 of 45)

While I haven't actually met John Andrews, Emerging Media Sr. Manager at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and adjunct professor at NWACC, I played him once on TV. Okay, that last part is a lie... but I am looking forward to connecting with John later this month, maybe over some BBQ at the Salt Lick here in Austin. What I can tell you about John is that he's a smart guy and COMPLETELY gets the world of "social." For starters, he's an active participant on Twitter AND, he also keeps a "life-streaming" blog about life with his wife and daughter.

I could go one but I shan't keep you from hearing more from John himself. Here are his answers to the Experts in the Industry series:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
I am a student of social media and spend time thinking about how to blend it with traditional marketing to amplify engagement with consumers. I am successful at this when I do a good job of listening.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
Accepted a position on the Walmart emerging media team a year or so ago.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
Kogi BBQ. They've mastered the craft and created a brand solely on the use of social (a great product probably doesn't hurt either)

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
I have always had a ton of respect for Mike Krzyzewski. Smart, passionate, driven. Defined his craft, loves his family, graduates his players. Oh, and I kind of like Duke.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
Probably not, but I would visit one if I needed specific information especially if it blended expert and consumer views.

[NOTE: John did send me this link this AM so he's thought about "toothpaste/toothbrushing communities more than you would think]

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
I believe social media can accomplish three key things. Help the hand raisers, connect passionates and give consumers an active role in managing brands. I don't think of social media as a replacement of traditional media but rather try to consider how the two will alter each other. I greatly enjoy being involved in the space on a daily basis and often relate it to the early fifties and working on the advent of TV.

More Music Dammit!

Was downloading a few songs I've tagged in Shazam recently and realized that it's been a while since I asked Twitter for some new recommendations (I still have $85 worth of iTunes credit). Of course I got lots more great recommendations. See for yourself...

1. carlainsf@AaronStrout For your list: B-Tribe, album "Spritual, spiritual"; Ray La Montagne; Musiq Soulchild; Fleet Foxes; Brett Dennen15 minutes ago from web
     
2. sdigregorio@AaronStrout I'm currently obsessed with Bon Iver, MGMT, Phoenix and, well Bowie - but I'm a Ziggy Stardust kind of girl all the time!43 minutes ago from twitterrific
     
3. Libmacbis@AaronStrout I'm considering the Adventureland soundtrack [great 80s tunes] and have been semi-loving Bon Iver and Regina Spektor of late.about 1 hour ago from web
     
4. peplau@AaronStrout Grand National's "A Drink And A Quick Decision" & Matt Pond PA's "Several Arrows Later".about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck
     
5. csaper@AaronStrout Good new music: Ladyhawke, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, William Fitzsimmons, Lenka, Silversun Pickups and Dovesabout 1 hour ago from TweetDeck
     
6. JuicyJones@AaronStrout the new Decemberists record. It's great.about 1 hour ago from Tweetie
     
7. MikeLangford@AaronStrout Do you have "Loungin'" by Guru? If not get it. Also, "The Denial Twist" by The White Stripes.about 1 hour ago from twhirl
     
8. Libmacbis@AaronStrout--the new Decemberists album--"The Hazards of Love." They're fantastic. This album is a folk rock opera.about 1 hour ago from web
     
9. pphilp@AaronStrout Yeah Yeah Yeah's Zeroabout 1 hour ago from web
     
10. Anti_Job@AaronStrout - Anything 80s. Siouxsie B-sides. Anything Parlimentabout 1 hour ago from web
      
11. Mary_R_Roberts@AaronStrout I hear you, it is sooo easy to just click buy? Actually watched Slumdog Millionaire on my Ipod since I "bought" it!about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

40 Reasons...

Tomorrow is my wife, Melanie's, 40th birthday so I'm dedicating this post to her. Yeah, I know... you're not supposed to talk about a woman's age after she turns 21 but Melanie is pretty comfortable in her own skin (and still looks totally hot) so she's not going to mind that I do this.

For the record, I'm stealing this idea from her although she went the extra mile and wrote her "40 things" list down in a beautiful little book. Given my "social" nature, I thought it would only be appropriate if I did my list out in the open for all to see. So here is my list of 40 reasons why I love my wife in no particular order:

1. You are the love of my life
2. You make me laugh
3. You are a GREAT mother to our three children
4. Your cooking
5. The fact that you are so organized
6. I also love that you are always on time
7. Your dedication to "science"
8. The fact that you don't mind packing
9. Your cute text messages
10. The fact that you were willing to give Facebook a try and are now addicted
11. Your willingness to let me Twitter (within reason)
12. The way you launder our sheets
13. The fact that you don't mind doing LOTS of laundry
14. The fact that you don't mind FOLDING lots of laundry
15. Your kisses
16. The fact that you changed your mind on a second cat (Lilly loves you for this too)
17. Cuddling with you on the couch when we watch "Lost" or Netflix movies
18. Traveling with you to the Turks and Caicos
19. Your ability to parallel park better than me
20. Your openness to new music (including the Foo Fighters and Kings of Leon)
21. Sitting in front of the fire place with you
22. Drinking coffee at Starbucks with you (especially without the kids -- sorry kids)
23. The fact that you are gentle, yet firm, loving but disciplined with our children
24. Your love of the sun
25. Your dislike of the cold
26. Your willingness to shovel snow while I'm away
27. The fact that I come home and furniture is moved and walls are painted
28. Holding your hand
29. Our family walks downtown
30. Eating icecream with you
31. Your hugs
32. The fact that you embrace my side of the family as your own
33. Your EXCELLENT communication skills
34. Your willingness to say I'm sorry
35. Your smile
36. Your eyes
37. The fact that you have become a diehard Red Sox fan and are willing to watch 162 games a year with me (okay maybe not 162 but a lot)
38. Your ability to throw a football (left-handed, mind you) better than many guys I know
39. Did I mention your kisses?
40. "Other" stuff that I can't mention here ;)

Happy birthday honey! I hope it's your best one yet...

Facebook as a Business Tool (Podcast)

Two weeks ago my friend, Mike Sachleben of Blitztime.com invited me to do a quick talk about Facebook and how it could be used for business. I didn't have a ton of time to prep for the call as I was actually subbing in for one of my other friends, Eric Glazer. Knowing a thing or two about the socialsphere, I'm never one to shy away from giving my $.02 on a particular topic and in this particular case, I think I held my own.

Listen in as I talk about:

• Etiquette for doing business on Facebook
  
• The differences between the audience on Facebook and LinkedIn
  
• Why Facebook Connect is going to be the next "killer app"
  
• Recommendations for good marketing/PR blogs for people to read who are just getting into the world of social

As always, I'd love to get your reactions. I know there's a ton more content to be offered up like that in CC Chapman's recent Facebook Fanpage whitepaper. Recent "Experts in the Industry" interviewee, Mari Smith, also knows a thing or two about Facebook for business so you might want to check her out as well.

Image courtesy Widget a Day

Experts in the Industry: Mari Smith (65 of 45)

Let me start this post with a BIG FAT apology to Mari Smith. She is one of the first people that responded to me with answers for the Experts in the Industry series. Somehow, her answers got lost in my inbox so it wasn't until the other day when I DM-ed her to ask her for her responses that she gently let me know she had done them a while back. Yup, Aaron = FAIL.

With that said, I've not actually met Mari although I look forward to doing so at some point in time. I've followed her Twitter and Facebook streams for a while now and love the pep, wit and smarts she brings to the socialsphere every day. If you haven't checked her out, she knows A LOT about Facebook and how to tap into it as a tool for business. 

Now that you know a little more about Mari, on to her answers!

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you're good at it.
I build powerful, profitable relationships – and show others how to do the same – using social networking. I'm a natural people person as well as a skilled tecchie.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
My entry into social marketing began in 1999 as I pursued two tracks: an information marketer and a relationship coach. I was thrilled when my two tracks converged in 2007 when I joined the alpha team of a Facebook application and promptly fell in love with Facebook and then Twitter. To me, social media is like "coming home" – it's a perfect fit for my personality. Previously, I hadn't appreciated sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, Ryze, etc. for business building until I experienced the power combo of Facebook and Twitter.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of "social," which company would it be and why?
I would say Facebook (though I'm not sure how far $10 million would go!), because in a short period of time they have powerfully built up a vast member base and a robust platform poised to spark transformation on a global level… if used effectively. Certainly, Facebook's prominence in the '09 Inauguration was most impressive – the ability to provide a common platform to generate community during a shared national/international experience.

I would use the money to build a division dedicated to (a) extreme customer service with phone contact and support via Twitter accounts, and (b) educating the business world as to the power of Facebook Pages for SEO, visibility and building brand awareness. Such education might be conducted via webinars, local live events, national conventions and more.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
Ooh, hard to choose just one! My faves are between Guy Kawasaki and Gary Vaynerchuk! I deeply admire both Guy and Gary's business acumen, effective use of social media to build their respective businesses, and their consistent personable presence on and offline. (My all-time fave leader is Oprah Winfrey – now if we could just get her tweeting!)

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
Yes, I would! As it happens, I *love* my dentist and the natural, herbal products he prescribes by Tooth and Gum. I would more likely join the community to do with conscious dentistry or natural oral care though… which would likely include all of holistic care.

Freeform – here's where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
Having recently met with several of Facebook's team, including the Director of Online Operations, I know their #1 focus is growth… yet they still consider themselves a startup company. Much as I love Facebook and am hugely optimistic for their continued massive growth, I would certainly love to see new policies implemented around:

1. not deactivating bona fide accounts (for violating unpublished limitations)
2. increasing the friend max, and
3. including global opt-out options for certain types of application or event invitations, for example. It's early days yet; I'm positive Facebook are here for the long-term and will continue to be among giants like Microsoft and Google in years to come.

Thoughts on Brands Engaging on Twitter

Today I was putting together some thoughts for one of our customers who is thinking about getting started on Twitter. As you know, I'm a big fan of not trapping information in an e-mail so I've posted a cleaned up version of my recommendations below. Obviously there are probably 100 other things to think about but I didn't want to overwhelm. If you want to add in the other 94, I won't stop you (that's why God invented comments).

For starters, I'm bullish on Tim Walker of Hoover's online "Twitter primer" deck since it's so chock full of great recommendations. Tim's deck is more of a "how to get started/what you should think about" for individuals but there are tons of valuable lessons any business could learn as well.

Also, I thought it might not hurt to provide a list of 40 well-known brands on Twitter that friend, Jennifer Van Grove, put together for Mashable. Considering the fact that it got 200 comments, I'd say it did its job.

Without further ado, here are some Twitter best practices for that I’ve amassed from my nearly two years (and 15,000+ updates):

• Be human. That doesn’t mean that you have to tell jokes or swear but it does mean that you should talk to people on Twitter like your customer service reps or store reps would talk to customers. Try to avoid using this as a corporate broadcast system.
• Follow all real people back. Yes, it will be hard to keep up with everyone over time (there are tools that can help you manage this process, like Tweetdeck). For one, this shows that you care about having a conversation with your constituents and two, if people want to direct message you (many will to ask customer service related questions), this is the only way they can reach out to you privately.
• Make sure you LISTEN. Twitter search is a great way to see who is saying what about your brand (and your competitor's brands). You might consider following back anyone that mentions you. DO NOT lash out at folks that are talking negatively about you. Reach out to them privately if possible (via direct message). If they aren’t following you, let them know that you’re available to discuss the matter if they’d like to take the conversation offline.
• Engage in the conversation. Ideally, the conversation involves topics that are germane to your company. However, don’t be afraid to support social causes or pat other companies or people on the back that are doing the right thing.
• Measure, measure, measure. There are a couple of ways to do this. For one, track all of the URLs that you publish using a service like Budurl. Second, keep track of your follow growth rate (look for spikes around big announcements, offers, etc.). Third, watch for inbound traffic that you drive to your site. You might also want to keep an eye on the "velocity" of conversation around your brand i.e. keep an eye on the rate of daily mentions of your brand on Twitter search.
• Keep up your momentum. One of the worst things you can do on Twitter is set up an account, tweet a couple of times and then let your account sit fallow. Try to commit to updating at least a couple of times a day (and don’t just point back to your site). This should be easy if you look at the URL next to “Listen” as there are already conversations going on about you that are begging for you to engage in.

Is your brand using Twitter? If so, what types of results are you seeing? Feel free to share in the comments below.

Image courtesy of SoloSEO

Experts in the Industry: Alexis Neely (64 of 45)

It's funny, the first time I connected with Alexis Neely was on Twitter. I saw her talking about Burning Man -- something I've always wanted to attend -- so I couldn't resist reaching out to her. Not only was she incredibly helpful but it gave me a great opportunity to learn more about the professional side of her life. [Hint: she is a family financial & legal expert on TV and author of Wear Clean Underwear].

One other thing I like about Alexis (there are lots of reasons btw) is our mutual appreciation for what my friend, Melanie Notkin, is doing with her SavvyAuntie.com business. With that as a backdrop, here are Alexis' answers:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
Not sure I can explain what I do in one sentence! I transform lawyers from ordinary lawyers into Personal Family Lawyers who become the trusted advisor and build lifetime relationships with their clients and I coach business owners to build multiple streams of revenue into their core business.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
I've been online since AOL and IRC (is that what it was called?) I love technology and being able to connect with millions of people from my living room.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
It would have to be Savvy Auntie. Melanie Notkin knows her stuff and is leveraging social to the hilt to build a huge community around being an aunt!

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
I most respect Richard Branson because he goes for it all the time in multiple businesses that on their face are unconnected. I love that.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
Probably not. I don't feel like I need another community. I'm already feeling guilty re my neglect of the communities I do have.

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
When people say you can't, let that be more fuel for the fire of your dreams.

Experts in the Industry: Chris Brogan (63 of 45)

WOW. What a pleasure it is to have today's "expert" grace the Stroutmeister blog. Yes, I'm talking about Mr. Chris Brogan, one of the nicest, hardest working guys in social media. During the day, he runs a company called New Marketing Labs. In his spare time, he does a little blogging here and there, helps orchestrate the Inbound Marketing Summit events and still manages to find time to assist with one of his pet projects (co-founded with Chris Penn) called Podcamp.

I probably don't need to tell you much more about Chris since he's somewhat ubiquitous in the socialsphere (find him Twitter here). If you want to hear Chris' melodious voice in addition to reading the answers to Experts in the Industry questions, feel free to head over here. Otherwise, here goes:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
I equip companies with strategies and skills to improve their Internet marketing efforts, and I'm good at it because I know how to speak human instead of geek.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
I've been at it before it was a world. I was into bulletin board services in the 1980s, then AOL, then Usenet, and all the other waves of online communication. I was in it because I was passionate about the ability to connect with humans from outside my proximity.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
I'd give my money to Federated Media, because I think they're building some of the best content marketing projects out there, and that these projects are leading the way in how brands can build good will and community around a content channel.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
I respect Dr. Stephen R. Covey for his work in educating people to be principle-centered leaders. His popular book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was (is) a cornerstone of my own personal success.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
No. What the hell would we talk about? Brushing techniques? No thanks.

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
Someone will crack the nut on combining the physical world with the web, and it's not going to be Linden Labs. With Google's maps and their other projects, I could see a fast-moving project that would allow us to build the Internet as a spacial construct, as well as just a data construct. I'm not actively aiding to this process, but I hope I'm spurring smarter minds than mine on to thinking about the possibilities of annotating the world and storing data in geospacial patterns where relevant, as opposed to just as data.

March 31: Weekly Content/Social Marketing Links

I recently asked my team (marketing, sales and product) to start coming to our weekly staff meeting with one article/blog post that spoke to them. It could be on anything but they needed to be prepared to give a 120 second update on what the article was about. The goal is to share these on a weekly basis. Here's what week one netted:

DP Rabalais:
Interesting post by DirJournal on how airlines are using social media as part of their marketing strategy. The article looks at how four airlines are using social tools such as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Blogs, etc, and what kind of results they’re getting. The airlines covered are: Southwest, JetBlue, Delta and Virgin.

Jay MacIntosh:
This MediaPost article is really strong in describing the importance of content (i.e. people sharing content is the fuel of social…) and how data and insight can/should drive ongoing improvement 

Doug Wick:

My article for today’s meeting is a post from Lenovo’s VP of Consumer Marketing, David Churbuck, on his personal blog, someone who is decidedly outside the social media echo chamber (not to discount the value of thoughts from within the chamber!).

This illustrates the mindset of many marketing folks out there who are focused on consumer marketing, and his advice hints directionally at what Powered does. But most people don’t connect this idea with social – it’s still a long walk from this first bit of advice. Anyhow, thought it might spark some interesting discussion for us. Also note the sole comment from Jim Forbes . . . yeah that Forbes.

Bill Fanning:
The iMediaConnection article that I’d like to share is titled “Rules of Engagement Marketing” at . This article discusses the benefits of having a two way dialogue with your customers as opposed to old marketing tactics of shouting at prospects in an interruptive manner and expecting them to listen.

Beth Lopez:
This ClickZ article discusses a new trend that is starting to take shape - Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are driving more traffic to sites than Google. Also states that social media is poised to become possibly the only growth sector in advertising in 2009. It will be interesting to see this play out in the coming year and how the social networks/platforms will monetize their platform w/o being serving intrusive display ads - particularly in light of Gen Y psychographics towards marketing. Another question that I will pose to our team (this article had me thinking on this) - Will Google and search become irrelevant in the future (or severely minimized) and lose out to social media sites? Only time will tell. But I will say that I, personally, am using Google less and less as I connect with friends and colleagues on twitter, yammer, Facebook and email to find out where to go on the Web. In fact, for the March newsletter, the majority of content was crowdsourced on yammer and our blog instead of me going to Google to search for relevant articles. Food for thought.

Trey Anderson:

This post from the Creating Passionate Users blog does a good job of discussing the types of strategies that might be employed to help cultivate a community.

Don Sedota:

This ReadWriteWeb post reinforces the impact that strong relationships and information flow have on achieving business goals within the organization.

Experts in the Industry: Mark Wallace (62 of 45)

I've known Mark Wallace, VP of social media for EDR, for a few years now. He and I were part of the exec team at Shared Insights (along with Jim Storer) -- a company that ultimately merged with Knowledge Planet to become Mzinga. The reason I mention this is that Mark and I have spend A LOT of time together... in a good way. From trips to Vegas (conference related) to attending Tool concerts together, we've had a chance to bond well beyond a tradititional business relationship.

What I appreciate about Mark (and have from the day I interviewed with him) is that he is a top shelf sales guy. Not the snake oil varietal but a guy that has worked his butt off building relationships, delivering value and ultimately trying to figure out how he can make his partners that much more successful. To that end, it's not surprising that he ended up at Mzinga client, EDR, heading up their social and online community initiatives.

I could go on and on about Mark but for your sake, I'll let his answers do the rest of the talking in the Experts in the Industry series:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
I am building a community for environmental and property due diligence professionals for Environmental Data Resources called commonground and have succeeded and failed enough times over the years to recognize how to create a vibrant and valuable community.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
I originally got involved in online communities back in 2001. I worked very closely with Jim Storer at DCI building online communities in support of our exposition, conference, and seminar business. I remember when we sold our first web seminar for crmcommunity.com members to Siebel Systems (will always be one of my favorite sales of all time) when web seminars were an emerging trend. I remember the high fives flying.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
I think I would invest in HubSpot. In addition to the fact that I really like their business model, I feel like they are a company that has truly embraced social media through all aspects of their business. And, I really find value in the products and services they deliver.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
If I had to pick one, I would have to say Leonard Abess, Chairman and CEO, of City National Bancshares. What an amazing story. He succeeded where most other banks failed, distributed $60 million in bonuses to his current employees and former employees, and did not show up to take credit for the success when the bonuses were paid out. He is the true definition of a leader and team player. I would love the opportunity to meet him.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
I don’t think I would join a toothpaste community although it certainly sounds appealing! What I would like to do is to spend time with the folks who manage that community. I suspect it would be a fairly challenging task. Imagine what we might learn!

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
Three of the most important things I have learned over the years are:

1. Communication happens in three ways – face to face, over the phone, and online. Ignore that as part of your social media strategy and you are doomed to fail.
   
2. Members, partners, and the community owner, need to receive value. If they do, they will participate and even spend money. 
   
3. It is important to make time. Find a way.
   

You can also follow Mark on Twitter at @MWallComm

Overheard: I Survived SXSW '09 and Lived To Talk About It (part 2)

Here's the thing about SXSW. It's just too great an experience to contain in one wrap up post. Last week, I wrote the first installment of my SXSX experience summary which gave six of my highlights from the event. Now it's onto the second post about the event also known as "geek spring break":

• Mashable | Blurb party - this was one of the most stressful yet rewarding events of SXSW, mainly because my company, Powered, was sponsoring it. While there are dozens of reasons I loved the party, here are a few highlights that stood out to me:- An opportunity to spend some time with my awesome colleagues Beth Lopez, Doug Wick, DP Rabalais, Bill Fanning, Natanya Anderson, Don Sedota, Trey Anderson, Doni Wilson, Liam Kernell, Rebecca Frasier, Alex Cheng, Tim Thompson and Pearl Russell.
  
  
  
  
  - More of the #sadmadglad photo meme w/ Jim Storer
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  - Meeting Peter Shankman aka @Skydiver of HARO fame and Lara Dalch who is an absolute peach.
  

  
  

  
  

  - I also met my new protege, Sydney Owen, quite seredipitously. Back story here.
  

  
  
  

  - One of the few times I actually got to see my #BostonToAustin bud, Bryan Person. Also got to spend more time with Bill Johnston, Andy Kaufman, Laura Fitton, Deb Micek, Cappy Popp, Kate Brodock, Jeff Cutler, Rebecca Corliss, KurtyD, John Maver, Derek Wilmot, and John Johansen.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The TechSet Blogger Lounge and sponsored by Windows Mobile. While I didn't get to spend as much time in the lounge this year, it's still my favorite place to hang out. Huge props to Stephanie Agresta and Brian Solis for putting this together and to Windows for sponsoring. Nothing like coffee and bagels in the morning, power and wifi for lunch, beer, cheese and grapes for happy hour and non-stop networking and blogging with folks like Jim Turner, Chris Kieff, Kyle Flaherty, Tim Walker, Liz Strauss, Jason Falls, Lee Odden, Amber Naslund and many more. Oh yeah, this was also where I brokered an introduction of two of my favorite social/community people - Chris Brogan and Charlene Li (pictured below)"
  
  
  
  
  
• Connecting with dozens of "online" friends like Zena Weist, David Armano, Mack Collier, Connie Reese, Just Kate, Erin Kotecki Vest, Chris Tolles, Lani and Benn Rosales, Peter Kim, Beth Harte, Jackie Huba, Ben McConnell, Katie Paine, David Alston, Zaneology, Bryan Person, Lionel Menchaca  at David Armano & Dell's All Hat's, No Boots tweetup at Guero's. This event was single-handedly responsible for the numerous cowboy-themed avatars on Twitter.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nice pics by David Alston here too.
  
  
• The Pool 2.0 party/hanging out with Peter Fasano, Andy Kaufman, Shawn Morton, Doug Wick, sister Heather, Jim Storer, Peter Kim, Chris Heuer, Kristie Wells, Todd Earwood, Marcel LeBrun, David Alston, Bill Johnston, Rocky Barbanica and Scott Monty.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The funniest part of the night ended up coming at the Rain after party where I finally got to hang out with Julia Roy, said "what up" to Gary Vaynerchuk, and partied with Mike Schneider, Christine Major, Robert Scoble and many others.
  
  
  
• A little SXSW re-do with Andy Kaufman, Ginger Wilcox and Deb Micek on Wednesday night after SXSW Interactive ended. Let's just say that food and drinks at the Cedar Door, mobile RV, billiards, live music and an attempt to "talk" our way into Pure Volume were involved.
  
  
  
  
• Wrap up posts because you can never cover everything. I'm sure there are hundreds but here are a few written by some of my closer friends:
  
  - Jim Storer (@JimStorer)
  
  - Rachel Happe (@RHappe)
  
  - Mike Langford (@MikeLangford)
  
  - Kyle Flaherty (@KyleFlaherty)
  
  - Adam Cohen (@AdamCohen)
  
  - Zena Weist (@ZenaWeist)
  
  - Christine Major (@CMajor)
  
  - Jeff Cutler (@JeffCutler)
  
  - Amanda Gravel (@AmandaGravel)
  - Peter Kim (@PeterKim)
  - Bryan Person (@BryanPerson)
  
  
  Photo Credits: Jim Storer, Brian Solis (Aaron & Scott), Andy Kaufman (Aaron, Deb, Andy & Ginger) and Mashable (Powered folks + Brett)

Experts in the Industry: Sara Dornsife (61 of 45)

Funny? Gosh darn Sara Dornsife is funny. I suspected it the first couple times we talked but what sealed the deal for me was her recent post about What your car says about you and why the U.S. auto industry is failing. I won't spoil it for you but I guarantee you won't be able to read it without laughing out loud.

That's not the only thing I like about Sara, however. She's also smart, insightful and has a certain hipness that makes me happy about the fact that I get to hang out with her semi-regularly (she and her husband live in Austin). She's also on the market -- think marketing meets great blogger/social media-type -- if you're looking (she's @SaraD on Twitter). Given her most recent experience running projects at Sun Microsystems, she can definitely "hang" when it comes to the corporate environment.

I could go on all day but I won't. Instead, let's jump over to the answers to her five questions:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
I am a community advocate and marketing purist.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
The old fashioned way, I fell into it. When I saw the opportunity to get involved in something new and to learn new skills and new ways to market, I took it. In my case it was through open source. We used forums, wikis, IRC, local user groups, and blogs to communicate with our communities. That was my foray into social media tools. As a marketer it was a big shift. Our users weren't interested in glossy color brochures full of catch phrases and adjectives, they wanted the facts. And more importantly, as users, they wanted to be involved to improve a product they use. It was both fresh and refreshing.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
I like Zecco's model and their use of social tools and a vibrant community to help their users learn how to invest.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
I have enormous respect for the people who generously give their time and energy to their local communities. The local Social Media Breakfast had the people from Mobile Loaves and Fishes in to get advice on to use social media to get their message out. I give them a huge and hearty standing ovation. I know they aren't really public figures, but they deserve our respect.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
Ah, the toothpaste community. No. Exactly, why? Communities are a relationship, and like any relationship require commitment and time to be meaningful. I wouldn't give my time to toothpaste. It already gets 10 minutes of my life everyday. If I had an autistic child, for example, I could see giving a ton of time and commitment to that community as a means of mutual support. I can handle brushing my teeth all by myself.

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
To me, social media is a tactic. A very important one listed with other important ones like branding, messaging, PR, website content, events... Where social media differs is in that it doesn't fall into a single bucket, it helps with support, QA, communications and development. That makes a pretty powerful tool. Cluetrain came out over 10 years ago and we are finally just starting to get it. I'm pretty excited to see what comes next.

Mr. Transparent

In today's Boston Sunday Globe, I was quoted in an article about the impact of social media during recessionary times. In particular, I talked about how important it is for businesses to be "proactively transparent," especially in the event that a reduction in force is required.

Unfortunately, the way I was quoted in the article makes it sound like I was calling into question the comittment to transparency and thus, the ethics of a good friend and former employer of mine, Barry Libert. For this, I am truly sorry for two reasons:

1. Barry has taught me a tremendous amount over the last three years and has helped me grow both personally and professsionally. For this reason, I will be eternally grateful to Barry and the lessons he's taught me.
2. Barry is one of the most transparent people I know. In fact, he is the inspiration for my regular use and demonstration of transparency at my currrent company. Anyone that has ever read my blogs knows this about me.

So just for the record, I AM still a big believer of transparency -- as is Barry. And that's why I feel like it's so important for me to right this wrong, even if it was the furthest thing from my original intention. I'm going to go ahead and chalk this up as a "lesson learned."

Best,
Aaron

Experts in the Industry: Sean O'Driscoll (60 of 45)

Sean O'Driscoll, CEO of Ants Eye View and former GM of Microsoft's MVP Community has become a good friend over the last couple of years (I think this is what my man, Mike Walsh, was talking about in his latest blog post). I first met Sean via Mukund Mohan and did a joint podcast with the the two of them. It was one of the first handful of podcasts I ever did so I'll apologize to Sean in retrospect for subjecting him to that experience. Since then, we run into each other at ForumOne events, online and most recently, walking down the street in Austin during SXSW.

One of the reasons you should pay extra close attention to Sean's responses is that he is truly a "Community" guy. As the former community manager of Microsoft's MVP community, he's not just a "social media guru" but someone that has lived and breathed community management and building. He's now taken those skills and joined forces with one of my other friends, Jake McKee and now helps companies think about their online community building efforts.

With that said, on to the answers:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
I’m good at knowing what I’m bad at and being able to own that and resource around it! I guess beyond that, I’m a good translator in that I can generally help two groups of people who seem unaligned better understand what each other are talking about and how to get on the same page. This is the way I see it in social media – my job is to help translate this phenomenon into actionable strategy for business executives.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
Accidentally of course! I was in Compuserve in 92 as a customer service rep for Microsoft. Then 10 years and many different MSFT roles later, I found myself running the Microsoft MVP program which identified, thanked and engaged the top global contributors to Microsoft product communities. 5 years in the trenches of leading that global program was an education I likely could never replace!

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
Hah! I can only answer one way – Ant’s Eye View, the company my partner, Jake McKee and I founded. It’s a simple mission, do work that matters with people you can learn from – I’d love to have $10M to spend on growing that ambition. We are all about helping big (and sometimes not so big) companies re-learn how to have conversations with their customers – We take the “ant’s eye view” in saying you can’t treat your customers like markets, you have to get down, eye to eye and genuinely engage with them if you hope to build authentic differentiation around customer experience!

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
How many have said Obama? Easy choice and a lot to admire. I think as an entrepreneur in my late 30s, I’ll pick a category of business leaders instead of one person. I admire people with the vision, courage and will to leverage credit and do whatever it takes to chase their dream as small business people. I’m at a different place in my life as I start the journey – it’s scary and wonderful, but it feels way different to me at 39 than going all in at 22, 24, 28 or whatever. Props for that ambition – I wish you well re-inventing what the world does and how it gets done.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
I doubt I would, but doesn’t mean there shouldn’t or couldn’t be one. I would join (and have done so) a BBQ community!

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
Because I do what I do with a customer experience dream, let me just share these two thoughts:

1. Customer Experience Management is NOT about better escalation management – come on people!
2. Peter Drucker said “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” Great statement that I’ll modernize this way: “the purpose of a business is to create customers who create customers!!”