Labels: Online Reputation Monitoring, Social Media Monitoring, Social Networks

1. Educate yourself.  Become an expert. Learn everything you can about social media and how the different channels operate. Listen. Lurk. Follow your competitors.
2. Start a pilot test.  Limit your scope at this phase.  The goals are to show modest but tangible success and make social media less scary internally.
3. Socialize your results across the company.  Encourage anyone who shows enthusiasm.
4. Sell social media to stakeholders one on one. Start the conversation on an individual level before trying to convene a group. Show them what your competitors are doing.  
5. Enlist outside experts, but don’t give up your brand. This will reassure management that your brand is safe and will not be hijacked.

Labels: Enterprise 2.0, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Monitoring

The FMCG giant, which spent £148m in 2009 on advertising for brands including Lynx, Magnum and Pot Noodle, is to integrate social media into product development and insight following a trial with men’s fragrance Lynx Twist in the UK and the US.

Unilever’s move highlights a trend among advertisers to create invite-only online communities to gain greater understanding of consumer opinions.

David Cousino, consumer marketing insights global category director at Unilever, said brands should be looking to online communities for innovation as well as for gaining consumer insight. “If you look at what’s happening online, not just on the social networks, the consumer has a voice as never before and brands need to listen more. Even if a brand doesn’t want to engage with consumers on that level, it will be forced to,” he said.

Cousino said other categories at Unilever that have passionate customer groups, including savoury foods, ice cream and haircare, were already using communities as a way to source creativity. “There are two ways of doing it. You could wait for something to go wrong and then use the community to fix it, but why not leverage the creative ability in the community that’s already out there?”

Source: New Media Age

Labels: B2B Social Media, Consumer Insights, Market Research, marketing

Nearly 70% of journalists surveyed are using social networking sites, a 28% increase since 200848% are using Twitter or other microblogging sites and tools, a 25% increase since 2008
66% are reading blogs
48% are viewing videos online
25% are listening to podcasts
Nearly 80% of journalists surveyed believe that bloggers have become important opinion-shapers in recent years
91% of journalists surveyed agree that new media and communications tools and technologies are enhancing journalism to some extent

Labels: Blog Monitoring, Blogging, Consumer Influencers

You've just reached 5,000 followers on Twitter. Congratulations. Now you have 5,000 people listening to you, right? Wrong! Let's take a closer look at about how many people you might be reaching with each message.

Information is processed hierarchically, following the six steps of McGuire's Information Processing Paradigm. The tweet must first be presented to the core audience, they must be attentive to it, understand what is presented, and yield to the statement; they must retain that information and then choose to act upon it at that point. To break it down into basic steps:

1. Attention - Once a message is presented, the recipient must pay attention to it in order for it to produce attitude change.
2. Comprehension - position recommended by the communicator must be comprehended.
3. Acceptance - must yield to the message content if any attitude change is to be detectable.
4. Retention - If change is to persist, must retain changed attitude over time.
5. Action - recipient must behave on the basis of the current or changed attitude.

The important point here is that the process is hierarchical, involving compounding probabilities. This means each step in processing information is dependent upon the successful completion of the previous step, and the percentage of the target audience positively responding at each step is multiplied over the six steps.

For example:
If 60% of the Twitter audience is exposed to a message and 45% pay attention, that means only 27% of the target audience is even available for comprehension; and so on through the last step – acting upon the message.

Once exposed to the tweet, the tweet must be processed, and successful processing involves:

• Attention
• Learning
• Acceptance
• Emotion

Conscious attention is required in order to fully process the tweet. One may not necessarily be aware of the tweet at first, but neurologically it must activate conscious processing in working memory, which will then lead to activity.

Conclusion
This full assessment is assuming they are following the general stream. This does not include segmentation features that such tools as TweetDeck provides that allows people to group certain people together and only follow their messaging. I believe Twitter really needs to work on it's social, search, and segmentation features to keep people feeling like they are being listened to and not feel like they are being drowned out by a large pool of noise.

1. The “Yellow Pages” have no room for comment & are easy to control
2. They look good on the bookshelf, in the picture frame and to the board
3. It’s hard to say “No” to the account manger from the yellow pages (she is very cute)
4. You can use nice safe corporate speak in the Yellow Pages
5. It’s safe one way communication
6. Like everything they will always come back into fashion “just you see, young man”
7. Direct mail has worked for us for the last 30 years
8. “Look, I can see our company name up in lights (TV)” – Ego
9. Facebook is for only for teenagers and it doesn’t fit our companies demographic
10. You don’t get sacked for doing what always worked 10 years ago (last century)
11. You can’t measure the “ROI” for Social Media
12. They haven’t worked out the costs of “Return On Ignoring”
13. We can’t have our competitors seeing our weakness or they might steal some ideas…Guess what, they already have it!

Labels: Engagement, marketing

Labels: Social Media Marketing, Social Media Monitoring

Labels: Social Media, Social Networks

89% of journalists said they turn to blogs for story research 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn
52% to microblogging services such as Twitter
61% use Wikipedia

Labels: Blog Monitoring, Consumer Influencers, Online Reputation Monitoring, Social Media Monitoring

• 89% of journalists said they turn to blogs for story research


• 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn


• 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter


• 61% use Wikipedia

• Eighty-four percent said social media sources were "slightly less" or "much less" reliable than traditional media.


• And 49% said social media suffers from "lack of fact checking, verification and reporting standards."

• Initiate the online discussion: Including Twitter-related information in your title slide -- title, speaker's name, Twitter username, and event hashtag -- will encourage your audience to "be in a relationship with you via Twitter," which you can use later on to respond to them in real-time.

• Build Twitter-friendly messages: Include up to four 140-character messages that you would want people to post, relating to your company, yourself, or your presentation's main ideas. Using these messages as slide titles increases the chance that people will tweet them.

• Take breaks for Twitter: At a few appropriate times during your presentation (exactly how many depends on the length of your presentation -- Atkinson suggests up to three), you should step back from the slides, pull up your own Twitter stream, and addess some of the comments or questions your audience is tweeting. 

Labels: Engagement, Twitter

Labels: Social Media

Labels: B2B Social Media, BuzzNumbers, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Social Media Agency, Social Media Intelligence, Social Media Monitoring, Twitter, Word of Mouth

Whether you’re ready to embrace it or not, social media is changing the way we communicate and make decisions. Today’s technology has impacted our daily lives and routines in a big way. If you don’t wake up to Facebook, you probably know someone who does. And good luck trying to escape the world of Twitter – it’s even invaded the nightly news.

Labels: Blogging, BuzzNumbers, Buzzz, Ideas, Online Reputation Monitoring, Social Media, Twitter

Labels: Consumer Influencers, Crowdsourcing, Social Media Intelligence

...but even more interesting is that we also looked at the financial performance of the brands, grouping the companies with the greatest depth and breadth into a group called “Social Media Mavens”. These Mavens on average grew 18% in revenues over the last 12 months, compared to the least engaged companies who on average saw a decline of 6% in revenue during the same period. The same holds true for two other financial metrics, gross margin and net profit.

Labels: Social Media Intelligence, Social Media Monitoring

Labels: Consumer Insights, Social Media Agency, Social Media Intelligence, Social Media Monitoring

Labels: Engagment

Revised advertising rules issued by the agency broadly extend the concept of endorsements and testimonials to include as sponsored advertising all sorts of loose new media relationships that are increasingly used in place of traditional radio and television advertising and paid endorsements. These rules fundamentally change the legal and regulatory landscape for Web 2.0 marketing and should be studied carefully by bloggers, marketers and online advertising agencies, all of whom will now have to contend with new compliance obligations. Violations are punishable by civil penalties of up to $11,000 per violation.

Labels: Enterprise 2.0, Social Media Monitoring

So what works [according to Seth Godin]?

Earn a reputation. Have a conversation. Ask questions. Describe possible outcomes of a point of view. Make connections. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Align objectives then describe a better outcome. Show up. Smile.

A big question out there these days is: What is the ROI of Social Media? Or the ever popular how do I measure the ROI of social media? Often when I get this question it’s appropriate for me to retort: "What’s the ROI of your phone?" Other times it’s not appropriate to respond with this answer, which, if done in the wrong tone, or place, can win you a free punch in the face. Then there are the naysayers that adamantly proclaim, "We aren’t doing social media because there isn’t any ROI."

Whether you are a business or an individual there are many complex issues to wrestle with when it comes to social media. Often these can be overwhelming. Where to even begin you might ask?

Rather than be paralyzed, it’s often best to understand that there are four simple, yet critical, steps to social media which are outlined in the diagram below:



As showcased in the diagram, the four steps are:

1. Listen
2. Interact - join the conversation
3. React - adjust your product or service based on 2
4. Sell

Companies often enter the social media fray and jump straight to step four, selling. This is the worst thing you can do, and it will not be effective. You need to start with step one which is listening. Without listening the other three steps will not achieve any degree of success. As many have said before me, there is a reason we have two ears and one mouth.

Labels: B2B Social Media, BuzzNumbers, Online Reputation Monitoring, Social Media, Social Media Intelligence, Social Media Monitoring, Twitter, Word of Mouth

Amid the endless pronouncements about social media -- often shortened to "social" these days by consultants trying to sound like they know what they are talking about -- is the reality that social media is not a solution, or a sure bet.

Social media can't:

1. Substitute for marketing strategy
   A Twitter campaign, or a Facebook page that announces your weekly specials is not a marketing strategy.



2. Succeed without top management buy-in
   Social media requires a way of thinking that includes willingness to listen to customers, make changes based on feedback, and trust employees to talk to customers.
   
   The culture of fear (of job loss, of losing message control, of change) is ingrained in corporate cultures. Top management has to want to change.
   


3. Be viewed as a short-term project
   Social media is not a one-shot deal. It's a long-term commitment to openness, experimentation, and change that requires time to bear fruit.


4. Produce meaningful, measurable results quickly
   One of the complaints about social media is that it can't be measured. But in fact there are many things that can be measured: including engagement, sentiment, and whether increased traffic leads to sales.
   
   Those results can't be produced or measured in the short term. Like PR, social media marketing often produces its best results in the second and third year.


5. Be done in-house by the vast majority of companies
   A successful social media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital, and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience, and the best social media marketers now have more than 10 years of experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content, and contests into online marketing.
   
   You need strategy, contacts, tools, and experience--a combination not generally found in in-house teams, who often reinvent the wheel or use the wrong tools.


6. Provide a quick fix to the bottom line or a tarnished reputation
   Social media can sometimes provide quick results for a company that's already a star. When a well-loved company like Zappos, or Google employs social media, its loyal fans and followers pay attention.
   
   However, there's a lot of desperation in a lot of corporate suites these days, and many companies seem been convinced that a social media campaign can provide a quick fix to sagging sales or reputation issues. Sorry, nuh, uh.
   


7. Be done without a realistic budget
   Building a site that incorporates interactivity, allows user-generated content, and perhaps also includes e-commerce doesn't come cheap from anyone who knows what they are doing.
   
   Even taking free software like WordPress and making it function as an effective interactive site, incorporating e-commerce, creating style sheets that integrate with the company's branding, takes more than time. That takes skill, experience, and money.


8. Guarantee sales or influence
   Unless your effort can pass the "who cares" test - and most simply can't - your social media efforts will fall flat.
   
   And unless you know how to drive traffic to your contest, video, blog, event, etc. you'll have little more than an expensive field of dreams.


9. Be done by "kids" who "understand social innately"
   You can climb Mt Kilaminjaro without a sherpa guide, but why would you? Experience and perspective can make the trip easier, or even save your life.
   
   Companies trying to run social media without experienced consultants waste time, money, and reputation on their efforts. And then, sadly, many decide that this new-fangled approach doesn't work.


10. Replace PR
    No matter how great your website, video contest, blog, Twitter strategy, etc. you still need publicity. Or you may end up with a tree falling in the forest, and nobody hearing it.

MANY business people have already recognised the power of social media and are poised to exploit it commercially at every opportunity.

One may have a new summer line of swimwear, another a fresh menu from the restaurant kitchen, another has a sudden shipment of Asian artefacts, another is offering Mother's Day discounts on facials and manicures.

With just a quick Twitter, these businesses can let all their followers know about the deals and get business pumping again.

But businesses that didn't monitor the various social media out there now - Twitter, SMS, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, blogs - could find themselves in enormous trouble because of the rapid, or viral, way the message is spread.

In fact, some could find themselves out of business within a month, according to David Eldridge, the chief executive of UK-based global marketing and analytics company Alterian.

"Social media has exploded and this means that the information people use to make buying decisions has changed," he said.

"It's not just what businesses put out there but also what people say in response.

"Feedback is instantaneous and if that feedback is bad then reputations and credentials can be damaged in minutes."

Mr Eldridge cited two recent examples of how the use of YouTube brought undone two powerful US organisations.

The most famous was a YouTube video made in jest by two Dominos Pizza staff who performed gross acts in the kitchen while preparing takeaways.

The food never made it to customers, but the video reached millions while Dominos reacted with all the corporate zeal of a stuffed mammoth.

While eventually the pranksters were sacked and faced felony charges, Dominos' reputation was trashed because of its inertia.

Ignoring a legitimate complaint about damaged baggage brought United Airways undone.

Early last year, musician Dave Carroll stopped off in Chicago on his way to a gig and saw the case containing his $2300 guitar being manhandled by the baggage handlers.

United chose to ignore his claim for $1200 worth of damage, until several months later when he wrote the song United Breaks Guitars and posted it on YouTube.

As one commentator said: "Revenge is a dish best served with country accompaniment."

"The first thing that businesses have to understand is that they're not the ones with sole control of their brand, because customers now talk about their experiences to a wider audience," Mr Eldridge said.

Not only did businesses need to respond quickly to what was being said, but they also needed to be careful about how they responded, he said.

It meant listening to what was being said about them, and what was being said about competitors.

"Fix customers' services issues, change marketing messages if they don't resonate," he said.

It also meant learning to interact with -- and not interrupt -- customers and clients.

"If you do a search of the world's top 20 brands, you will see that 25 per cent of the entries are user comments," Mr Eldridge said.

Further, buyers prefer these comments over the information the businesses put out, he said.

"Fourteen per cent of people trust advertisements, but 90 per cent trust peer recommendations. It's important to put the brand image out there, but it's equally important to monitor what's being said," Mr Eldridge said.

Labels: B2B Social Media, Blogging, Engagment, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Twitter

Labels: Online Reputation Monitoring

• Kate Gibbs - Managing Editor, The New Lawyer
  
• Robert Beerworth - Managing Director, Wiliam
• Suresh Sood BSc (Hons)(London), MBA (UTS)
• David Bushby - Boardroom Radio

Labels: B2B Social Media, Social Media

Labels: B2B Social Media, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media Intelligence

Labels: Social Media Intelligence

Labels: Social Media Intelligence, Social Media Monitoring

Labels: Social Media Intelligence, Social Media Monitoring

Labels: Social Media

• Mosaic Sales Solutions describes the "key characteristics" of its ideal market training specialist as "an avid user of the Internet, blogs, Twitter and/or has a Facebook page or other social networking account."
  
  
• Valtech Technologies seeks a scrum master/project manager whose critical responsibilities will include "social collaboration including work spaces like Wiki’s, blogs, Twitter, etc."

Labels: Enterprise 2.0

Labels: Enterprise 2.0, Word of Mouth

Labels: Social Media Monitoring

Labels: Enterprise 2.0, Social Media Intelligence, Social Media Monitoring

Labels: Social Media Monitoring

Labels: Ideas

• Because of lack of information, processes, and tools, through 2012, more than 35 per cent of the top 5,000 global companies will regularly fail to make insightful decisions about significant changes in their business and markets.
  
  
• By 2012, business units will control at least 40 per cent of the total budget for business intelligence.
  
  
• By 2010, 20 per cent of organizations will have an industry-specific analytic application delivered via software as a service as a standard component of their business intelligence portfolio.
  
  
• In 2009, collaborative decision making will emerge as a new product category that combines social software with business intelligence platform capabilities.
  
  
• By 2012, one-third of analytic applications applied to business processes will be delivered through coarse-grained application mashups.

Labels: Cebit

"Webciety, a vibrant and informative multimedia display of the power and potential of the Internet for today's working and social worlds, will bring the Internet home to CeBIT Australia 2009 in Sydney next month after proving to be one of the smash hits at this year's CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany.

CeBIT Australia's Webciety pavilion put the spotlight on today's Web-based society, featuring mobile Internet, wikis, communities, blogs, microblogs and other interactive Internet services which are making our lives increasingly digital.

The concept behind the Webciety Area is to show the Internet at work by using the tools of the Internet itself - essentially creating a "walk-through" Internet."

Visit: http://webciety.cebit.com.au/

Labels: BuzzNumbers, Cebit, Events

Labels: BuzzNumbers, Startup

Labels: Online Reputation Monitoring

Labels: Blog Monitoring, Online Reputation Monitoring, Social Media Monitoring

Labels: Online Reputation Monitoring, Social Media Monitoring