Nov 10, 2008

A look back at four years

Over at the new site, some of my favorite posts from four years of Marketing Roadmaps.

Posted @ 2:11PM in Blogging

Oct 29, 2008

SNCR Symposium November 14th

The post, and a little challenge for Boston-area public relations and social media firms, is at the new Marketing Roadmaps site:

http://getgood.com/roadmaps/2008/10/29/sncr-symposium-november-14-in-boston/

If you like Marketing Roadmaps, even just a little, please resubscribe to the new feed.

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Posted @ 6:10PM in Blogging | Comments (0)

Oct 17, 2008

One week outside the echo chamber

I've been on the road since Tuesday morning, travelling first to a Chicago suburb to give my social media 101 presentation to the consumer relations group of an international consumer products company and then to Cincinnati to give a similar talk to the Ohio Conference of AAA Clubs Annual Meeting.

Presenting to mostly newbie audiences stands in stark contrast to my recent panels at Blogworld Expo and BlogHer, where the folks in the audience were active social media users looking to expand their knowledge about specific things, whether it be monetization of the blog, how to balance personal privacy with public blogging or the best way to integrate Twitter and blogger relations into a social media strategy.

The events this week were also convened for entirely different purposes than to talk social media. The first was an offsite for the consumer relations team and the second an annual meeting of AAA affiliate clubs in Ohio. My social media presentations were one very small part of a packed agenda focused on business issues, not blogging.

It was an incredibly refreshing week outside of the social media echo chamber. While both organizations were very interested in learning about blogs and social networks, social media wasn't the only topic of discussion. As a result, I had an opportunity to hear about the pressing issues driving their businesses.

This perspective is invaluable. We get so caught up in the echo chamber, we sometimes forget that for social media to be relevant, it has to be solving real world business problems.

Which it does. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely believe that social media participation is a critical component for 21st century customer engagement. It just needs to be grounded in the needs of the business. And its customers.

Not the needs of the companies flogging the latest widget or tool set.

Some thoughts that were validated this week in my time outside the echo chamber.

Large multinationals face a crossroads that smaller companies may never see. Who “owns” the relationship with the customer? Both marketing and customer service/consumer relations have a legitimate “claim” to this relationship, and due to organizational size, they tend to operate in silos of responsibility.

Marketing and consumer relations also have very different reasons for listening to and engaging with customers. Marketing listens to understand what messages motivate purchase. Customer service and consumer relations are charged with resolving customer problems or complaints, and sending the customer feedback up the chain to product marketing.

But the consumer doesn’t see or care about these silos. She does NOT divide the experience with a product into before sale and after sale. She just buys a product. It is going to require executive commitment at the highest levels, cross-functional teams and deep, deep cooperation to get this right in these large multi-nationals.

AAA faces a similar challenge. While the brand is national, the clubs are locally owned, independently operated businesses. It’s a mega-franchise.

It also has more than 50 million users nationwide, which is a helluva base for an online community. The trick will be for the national organization and its clubs to figure out how to divide the responsibility for online customer engagement. Some of it needs to be done nationally. Other elements will be much more successful at the local level. Again, deep cooperation will be required.

The good news is that the organization understands that its members, current and future, are online and has started to ask the right questions.

A brief aside about AAA, since I told my flat tire horror story during the session and I expect that some of my listeners will be reading this post. I forgot to tell this story during the speech and it is one of the times I have been most glad to be an AAA member.

I’ve been a member all my driving life. When I got my license at 19, my mom gave me her used car (so she wouldn’t have to schlep me to college) and an AAA membership.

In the mid-80s, my apartment in Lawrence Mass was robbed. Stereo, tv, jewelry but most sadly, my porcelain doll collection. The responding police officers told me it was a long shot I would ever see my stolen goods again, but if I did happen to see them in a pawn shop, to call the police first and wait for them to go in and claim the goods.

I didn’t have much hope.

A few weeks later, imagine my surprise when, driving back to my office in Methuen after picking up some airline tickets for my brother at AAA in Lawrence, I happened to glance over at a pawn shop window, and saw some of my very unique porcelain dolls in the window. This was before cell phones so I pulled into a parking space, and used a pay phone to call the detectives. They came and we got my stolen property back. All my dolls.

Nothing else was recovered, but we did learn who pawned the goods (and probably stole them in the first place) and they were prosecuted for receiving stolen goods.

All because I was driving back from AAA in Lawrence on my lunch hour.

Back to my week outside the echo chamber.

I've decided that I definitely need a better way of introducing Twitter. It needs a demo. A screen shot and description don't cut it with a truly neophyte audience. They don't always ask for more explanation. Luckily, in one session where I did have some pretty confused folks, I got an opportunity at the break to show it to them on my BlackBerry and explain things a little better. Enough that I'm expecting some new followers in the near future.

It was a great week, but I am glad to be home. My deepest thanks to both organizations for inviting me into their programs. I hope they got something out of the experience. I certainly did.

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Next on Marketing Roadmaps: I taped both of my panels at BlogHer Boston, and hope to post some decent sound files over the weekend. Stay tuned! Fair warning, though: this post will only go up on the new site, so change your bookmarks and RSS subscriptions now :-)

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Posted @ 9:10PM in Blogging | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Oct 10, 2008

Change of Address

Marketing Roadmaps has moved!

We're still dusting off a few things so I probably won't have any major posts up until next week. I also will cross-post for about a week to give everyone time to update their bookmarks and subscriptions, but around October 20th, all Marketing Roadmaps posts will be here, http://getgood.com/roadmaps

I will keep the Typepad account (getgood.typepad.com) through 2009 (perhaps longer, not sure) so inbound links to the old blog will not break, however, all the posts have been migrated. Thanks Karen!

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NOTE: A reader reported problems subscribing to the Wordpress blog on a Mac. We're trying to track it down, but both the original and Feedburner feeds validate, and it appears to be working in Windows with both FF and IE so I am a bit confused as to what the problem could be.  Stay tuned, and if you have any thoughts, please do share.

NOTE 2: I think everything is fixed now. Cross fingers.

 

Posted @ 1:10PM in Blogging | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Oct 9, 2008

Impending Move

Marketing Roadmaps is dangerously close to moving to WordPress, which is why I have not been posting here. I am writing fairly regularly over at Snapshot Chronicles right now, so if you want to know what I've been up to, pop over there.

I'll put up a post and link to the new blog address for Marketing Roadmaps when it's done. I've been saving some really good (bad?) stuff for you.

Posted @ 8:10AM in Blogging | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Sep 20, 2008

Dunbar's, blogs, fans and community

Over the past few weeks, a few of my blogging colleagues have raised the issue of Dunbar's number in the context of establishing relationships with bloggers and communities. Among them Kami Huyse, Jen Zingsheim  and David Wescott.

Dunbar's number? You may not know it by name, but you certainly do by reputation. The general gist is that the upper limit of a social circle is 150. It is often cited in discussions about community building; if 150 is an upper limit for relationships, how can social media scale? Of course, Dunbar's number has its origins in the study of primates and grooming circles, which is not completely extensible to human relationships and certainly not to online relationships, which are not subject to the limitations of the physical world.

Even online, though, one to one relationships don't scale. On either side, company or blogger. In this respect Dunbar's number is correct. We cannot be “best friends” with everyone.

Kami recently suggested that we think about social media outreach as building relationships with communities.

But we don't build relationships with entities; we build them with people.

A relationship with a person may be extended into the community if the reputation of the one merits it, but I'm hard pressed to call that a relationship in the strictest sense. The strength of the one person’s relationship with the rest of the community dictates whether this works. It all depends on how much the others in the group rely on her opinion, model themselves on her behavior etc.

The question isn’t, are they her friends? It is, are they her fans?

That’s why I think Kami is onto something, but I would cast it in a slightly different light. When we aim for scale, the answer isn't to focus on the community as an entity. It’s to understand that what we want are fans.

When we aim for scale, it is a one to many relationship. We will probably use some one to one relationships as the building blocks for the larger effort, but net net, it will be an entity – a company – trying to build or influence a community.

And really, what we are trying to do is turn our customers into our fans.

In order to do that, we have to tap into what makes people care. What makes them love.

Because community isn’t just about group dynamics, although they are part of it. Or the need to assemble in a collective, what Francois Gossieaux calls tribalism.

What brings, and keeps, a community together is love.

This is why when I think about building communities, no matter how dry the product may seem, I focus on what makes people care. What inspires them.

And why I think we can learn a lot about building communities from studying fandom.

What’s fandom? In the simplest sense, it is the informal and formal groups that spring up around entertainment -- an artist or a team or a television show or a movie franchise. It’s the passion that makes people paint their bodies red white and blue before a Patriot’s or Red Sox game.  Dress up as Mr. Spock, Princess Leia or John Crichton for a “con.” Read and write fan fiction and spoiler sites.  Buy boxes of pencils to send to media moguls during the writers strike.

Even though people have been collecting due to shared interests for as long as we've had society, fandom as we are discussing it here is mostly a 20th century phenomenon driven by mass entertainment like the movies and organized sports. 

The shared interest and relationship to a franchise – show, artist, athlete or actor -- brings people together. Over time, the members develop relationships with each other. Sometimes those relationships last longer than the fan relationship, leading to a community that interacts on multiple dimensions – the initial thing that brought the folks together, and then all the other shared interests that the members find they have.  As Shrek might say, like an onion, with layers.

While fandom existed well before the Internet, the Net and particularly social media have most definitely accelerated and expanded the fan effect.

If companies want to achieve a similar impact, by either building a new community or influencing an existing one, we need to understand more about what makes a fan.

Why are the fans so passionate?

It starts with the product – the quality TV series or the top sports team or the great band. But it's more than just the entertainment value that builds the passion of fans.

It's the relationship that the fan has with the franchise, which doesn't have to be “real” to have tremendous power. The fan doesn't “know” the artist, character or athlete, but she feels she does. The perceived relationship, the one way relationship is enough.

Not because she's delusional. Because the artist reaches out to fans in numerous ways that create a sufficient relationship for the fan. Starting with the performance and moving from there. Fan clubs. Conventions. Sports teams thanking the fans for their support.

Celebrities make personal appearances, attend conventions, authorize fan clubs, set up their own websites for communicating with fans. They share what they can to encourage the fan to feel like they know them, to stay invested in them, to appreciate their work. Joss Whedon is a great example of an artist who does this exceedingly well. Among other things, he participates regularly on fansite Whedonesque; his fans feel connected to him and every  project he does has a built-in audience of  viewers before it even hits a screen.

Even though we don't really know the artists, athletes or actors, we know they value and care about the fans. That they strive to deliver a good product that we will enjoy.

So the first two elements a company needs to deliver if it wants fans are:

• have a good product that meets their needs - Value;
• show you care about the fan and walk the talk – Engage.

Now, once you have fans you have to keep them. This is where Respect comes in.

Some artists and athletes forget that their power, their franchise, is fan supported. They may have the raw talent, but if people stop watching the show because the star is phoning it in or the producers replaced a fan favorite with another performer, it's hero to zero in a flash.

You must respect your fans. Don't stop listening and never think you don't need them. Because the last thing you want is fans gone mad.

Where does the love come in? It runs throughout.

Love your product and make sure it has what it needs to make your customers love it. LOVE IT.

Love and respect your fans as much as they love and respect you. You need them collectively far more than they need you. They can always find somebody to love. Doesn't need to be you.

So, if we believe that fandom will help us build community, how do we make that happen for our products? Most products aren't sexy or entertaining or funny, although advertising certainly tries to make us think they are, or that we will be if we buy them.

But that doesn't fly in social media, right?  We cut through the bullshit or at least we like to think we do.

How do we find and feed our fans? That's the key to community.

And the topic for another day.

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We will probably touch on some of these themes in the Social Media and the Writers Strike panels at BlogWorld Expo on Saturday. If you are in Vegas, hope to see you at one of them.

Posted @ 1:09PM in Blogging, Community, Social networks | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Sep 16, 2008

Not dead yet

Just really busy bringing a new client site up and getting ready for BlogWorld Expo, including stepping in as a moderator on a panel due to a friend's unavoidable last minute conflict.

But, I have been working on a post about community and fandom, which hopefully will be up before I leave on Friday.

Also, heads up, we are very close to moving this blog over to WordPress. I'll be keeping the Typepad site up so I don't break other folks' links, but at some point in the very near future, the blog will move. Hope you come along for the ride.

It may just be a wild one, Mr. Toad.

(image from Wikipedia)

Posted @ 11:09PM in Blogging | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Aug 25, 2008

Mathom Room: Compensation Architect, Media Bullseye, Intuit and relaunch of PBS Parents

The mathom room is that place where I put all the interesting stuff that I want to tell you about but just don't have time to devote a whole post. Here's this month's collection.

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Compensation Architect is a new blog that I developed for Santorini Consulting, an enterprise software implementation firm. The blog is a guide to designing, managing and implementing compensation systems; its principal author David Kelly is a recognized expert in the field. If you are, or someone you know is, involved in setting or managing sales compensation systems and policies, I urge you to check it out. Design by Leslie Doherty of Catapult Web Development.

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I keep forgetting to mention that I was a guest on the Media Bullseye Roundtable podcast on August 1st. Sarah Wurrey, Jen Zingsheim and I talked about BlogHer, whether the web is impacting reading standards and the impact of Randy Pausch's life and death on the interwebs.

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I'm going to have more to say on the JingleGenerator from Intuit as a blogger relations campaign, but for now, just enjoy messing around and creating jingles using this tool. I'm not sure anyone would actually use one of these jingles in a promo campaign but it's kinda fun to create one. And I absolutely love this footnote from the press release:

   

¹Tommy Silk is a totally fictitious character, created solely for the promotion of theJingleGenerator.com because we didn’t have the budget to hire someone famous or use their name without getting our pants sued off. Any resemblance to real music moguls, living or dead, is purely coincidental. So there.

Silk? He's sort of a cross between Austin Powers, Tommy Mottola and Tommy Lee.With maybe a dash of Van Halen. And funny, though not nearly as funny as the footnote.  Enjoy.

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PBS has relaunched pbsparents with the Supersisters blog written by sisters Jen Lemen, Kristen Hammond and Patience Salgado. I love the idea of hearing from siblings on a subject. One of the most compelling blogs I've ever "read" was 3191 a photo blog by two sisters who lived on opposite coasts, took a photo every morning and then posted the results. I think Supersisters has the potential to be just as compelling. Check it out.

That's it for the mathom room. I'll be back later in the week with more blogger relations, good and bad.

Tags: Intuit, PBS, Supersisters, Media Bullseye, Santorini Consulting       

Posted @ 7:08PM in Blogger relations, Blogging, Mathom Room | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Aug 14, 2008

BlogWorld Expo and the entertainment industry

If you're interested in the shift currently happening in the entertainment industry from the traditional studio driven model, in which a few media moguls control the purse strings and our screens, to a user-generated creativity-driven online model -- for example, Joss Whedon's recent direct-to-Internet project Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog --  I'm moderating two panels at BlogWorld Expo next month in Las Vegas that you might find interesting.

They'll certainly be entertaining. Read on, check out the panelists and you will see why.

The point of departure for both panels is the Writers Strike, and how the writers used social media like blogs and YouTube to get their message across.  I came up with the idea for the panels shortly after the strike ended last spring. I was struck by how effectively the writers used social media to communicate with the media, fans and indeed with each other to keep themselves motivated during the long months on the picket line. I pitched the idea to BlogWorld Expo, they said yes, and the gods must have been smiling on me, because I was able to recruit some truly awesome panelists.

Here's the scoop on the panels. I hope to see you there.

Social Media and the Writers Strike: Blogs, Fans and Community
Saturday September 20, 2:45-3:45 pm
This panel, the first of two about Social Media and the Writers Strike, will offer an overview of how the writers used social media during the strike to inform the public, encourage and reward fan support and keep union members motivated. We’ll focus on community-developed sites like United Hollywood and the impact of fan support as we discuss the overall impact of social media, vs. mainstream media, on the outcome.

Panelists
Jeffrey Berman
Jeffrey Berman's first spec script was purchased by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard at Imagine Films. Since then he has written feature film projects for Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and The Walt Disney Studio, as well as several independent film companies. In the television market, Berman has written and sold several MOWs including The J.K Rowling bio-pic for NBC television and The Last Rainmaker for Hallmark. Recently, Berman co-founded UnitedHollywood.com and is producer/co-host of UnitedHollywood Live. He also created and hosts The Write Environment, a compelling series of one-on-one interviews with some of today's most prolific writers.  He ran the Pencils 2 Media Moguls campaign during the strike; read more here.

Erica Blitz, Galactica Sitrep
Erica Blitz, who often goes by the online handle "ProgGrrl," is co-editor of the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA fansite Galactica Sitrep, and blogs about miscellaneous TV, film and pop culture at FanGrrl Magnet. She currently works in film advertising in New York City and has a background in both film and music marketing. For a closer look at how Sitrep covered the WGA strike from the fan perspective, check out these tagged posts. 

Steve Diamond, Vallywood
Steve Diamond is a law professor and political scientist on the faculty of Santa Clara University School of Law in Santa Clara, California, which is in the heart of Silicon Valley. He has an extensive background in the labor movement and advise a wide range of unions, workers and institutional investors on financial and legal issues. He was a candidate to become National Executive Director of the Screen Actors Guild in 2006.

Mark Verheiden, Famous Mark Verheidens of Filmland
Mark Verheiden is currently the Co-Executive Producer of the Peabody Award winning television series BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, screenwriter of the Fall 2008 feature MY NAME IS BRUCE (starring Bruce Campbell), and screenwriter on the original feature film ARK (Sony Pictures), produced by Neal (I AM LEGEND, FAST & THE FURIOUS) Moritz and Mike (Dark Horse Productions Chief) Richardson. Past work includes writing and producing the first three seasons of SMALLVILLE, writing the scripts for the feature films TIMECOP & THE MASK, and scribbling out nearly 125 comic books including THE AMERICAN, ALIENS, PREDATOR, THE PHANTOM, SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN/BATMAN.”


Social Media and the Writers Strike: How user-generated content won the war of the words
Saturday September 20, 5:00-6:00 pm
The use of user generated content during the Writers Strike to both inform and entertain further validated the importance of the Internet medium. This panel, the second of two about Social Media and the Writers Strike, will dive deeper into the impact of websites and videos written (and often performed) by the writers and distributed through YouTube, United Hollywood and other Internet sites. Why did they work so well, and how has user generated content changed the entertainment landscape? What lessons can we apply to our own endeavors, personal, professional and corporate?

Panelists
Jeffrey Berman (see bio above)

Michael Colton, www.coltonaboud.com
Michael Colton writes for film and television, and is currently working on a new Fox animated show set to air next spring. He and partner John Aboud also appear regularly as panelists on VH1's "Best Week Ever," "I Love the 80s" and other shows. Before moving to L.A., they ran the Web magazine Modern Humorist, and prior to that, Colton was a staff writer for the Washington Post. During the Writers strike, Colton & Aboud created the much-discussed parody website AMPTP.com (now housed at AMPTP.humortron.net). Joss Whedon praised them as "heroes," which is obviously an understatement.

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See what I mean? It's gonna be a fun time, and I hope some of my readers can join us. If you can make it, use discount code SGVIP for 20% off your admission. The code is good until September 1st, but early bird registration ends on August 22d; if you are planning to go, you can save even more by registering by then.

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Special thanks to Erica Blitz and Rob Kutner, a writer for The Daily Show and author of Apocalypse How. They were invaluable in connecting me with potential panelists, and I am forever grateful for their help.

Tags: BlogWorld Expo, Writers Strike

Posted @ 6:08PM in Blogging, Community, Social media | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Jul 2, 2008

Blogging, social media & customer service (Part 5)

Part 5: Comments. They're what keep you up at night.

Without a doubt, the issue at the forefront of most customer care professionals is how to respond to comments, whether on your own company’s blog or elsewhere. You are really worried about the negative ones. This is not only a real concern but also a realistic one.

Some folks out there are crazy and there’s nothing to be gained by engaging with them. The good news is, the Internet is a fairly self-correcting environment. If someone is talking trash about your products without cause, the community tends to self-police.

Some, hopefully many, comments will be positive. More importantly, the conversation will happen with or without you. The only thing I can guarantee is that if you make no effort, nothing will change. But if you do, your customers will notice.

When people say positive things online about your company and products, thank them. When they criticize or have a problem, respond. Solve the problem if you can. If you can’t, develop the mechanisms in your firm so you can escalate the issue. If there is no solution, explain, clearly and honestly. The customer may not be happy, but the rational ones will appreciate the response.

Depending on the situation this conversation could happen publicly on a blog or microblog like Twitter or privately in email. Choose the response that fits the situation and your company culture. What matters is that your customer spoke online and you heard him.

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Update: Netflix recently demonstrated that it is paying attention to its customers when it rescinded a decision to remove a popular feature after customers protested online. Hat tip to Sandra. 

Next up: Part 6, Should you build a community?

Tags: blogs, social media, customer service

Posted @ 11:07AM in Blogging, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, Social media | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Jun 29, 2008

Blogging, social media & customer service (Part 3)

Part 3: Impact of Social Media on Customer Care

Customers are engaging with social media. So are many companies. For example, nearly 12 percent of the US Fortune 500 companies have a blog of some kind. The benefits that accrue for both individuals and companies include deeper relationships with peers and customers, increased awareness of the brand, whether personal, professional or corporate, broader and deeper professional networks, improved search engine rankings and increased traffic to the website.

But what about the specific impact on customer care? How has the social media explosion changed the playing field for customer service and consumer affairs professionals?

As noted earlier, postings on customer care experiences influence purchase decisions. In the SNCR study, 74% reported that they choose companies and brands based on others’ customer care experiences shared online.

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Source: Society for New Communications Research, Exploring the Link Between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media

The SNCR study also reveals an opportunity. While consumers feel that one person can influence many about a bad customer care experience, only 30% of the respondents thought that businesses take customer opinions seriously. And that’s the opportunity – to start listening and acting on what customers may be saying online.

Source: Society for New Communications Research, Exploring the Link Between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media

This is a scary idea for many -- indeed most – companies, mostly because we tend to focus on the negative. And there is negative, no question. There aren’t many people in business who don’t know the story of Dell Hell, and how one prominent blogger’s negative postings about Dell customer service exploded into a serious PR problem for the computer maker in 2005.

However, it’s not all bad. Customers leave unsolicited positive comments about the products and services they love every day on blogs, review sites and discussion forums. And for the most part, companies are just as silent.

But not Dell. The company launched its Direct2Dell blog in July 2006 to engage directly and publicly with customers about problems. Though the blog had a rocky start, Dell succeeded in showing even its most severe critics that it was both paying attention and acting on customer feedback. The company monitors consumer sentiment in the blogosphere and has seen its negative rating decline from 49 percent negative in August 2006 to 21 percent negative in January 2008 (Source: Presentation at New Comm Forum 08 by Richard Binhammer, Dell)

There are two very important lessons from the Dell experience. First, top management support is absolutely essential. Customer feedback must be actionable. Dell had that support from Michael Dell. Second, your best customer is often the formerly unhappy customer. Jeff Jarvis, the blogger who launched Dell Hell in 2005, wrote a positive piece about the company’s efforts for BusinessWeek in October 2007 and commented on his own blog Buzz Machine:

“After giving Dell hell two years ago, I may well be accused of throwing them a wet kiss now. It’s a positive piece. But it’s hard not to praise them when they ended up doing everything I was pushing in my open letter to Michael Dell. I’m not saying that I caused that, just that we ended up agreeing and they ended up seeing the value in listening to and ceding control to customers. They reached out to bloggers; they blogged; they found ways to listen to and follow the advice of their customers. They joined the conversation. That’s all we asked.” (October 18, 2007)

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In part 4, we'll discuss what customer service should do about and with social media.

Tags: blogs, social media, dell

Posted @ 11:06AM in Blogging, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, Social media | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Jun 26, 2008

Blogging & social media: What customer service professionals should know, and do, about it (Part 1)

This article is based on a workshop I delivered at the SOCAP International Symposium in April.

Part 1- Defining Social Media: Blogs & Microblogs

Customer service. It’s the new marketing.

Huh? Anyone who has been in business for more than five minutes knows that customer service has always been part of marketing. The scale of the modern enterprise and the realities of distribution may have separated them functionally, but practically, a customer’s experience with our product is just as, if not more, important than any ad, promotion or package.

Ah, but it’s different now. Customer satisfaction is more important than ever. Research conducted by global think tank Society for New Communications Research in Spring 2008 reported that 72 percent of respondents researched products and services online, and 84 percent considered the customer care reputation of the company when making a purchase decision.

Where are consumers finding this information? Not on your corporate website. Increasingly, they are turning to social media like blogs to both share their opinions and find out what others think. In the SNCR study, search engines, online rating systems, discussion forums and blogs were all considered more valuable sources of information than the company website.

 
Source: Society for New Communications Research, Exploring the Link Between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media

Social media is a collective term used to refer to a variety of online tools including blogs, social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and online consumer forums. This article will give you a brief overview of the ones most important for customer service and satisfaction. The key thing about all of them is that they give consumers a way to communicate with each other, fast. Faster than sometimes the company can respond. As customer service and consumer affairs professionals, you need to understand which ones your customers are using, and develop strategies to use those same tools to improve your service and satisfaction.

We’re going to focus on the tools most relevant to customer service: blogs, microblogs and social networks.

Technically, blogs are simply websites developed using a lightweight content management system (CMS). They use HTML, just like your company website, but the CMS tools are designed to be simple to use for people without technical knowledge. Well known CMS include Typepad, Blogger, Movable Type and Word Press.

The things that most clearly identify a site as a blog are:

• Content, or posts, presented in an article-like form, in reverse chronological order.
• Ability for readers to leave public comments
• Ability to subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed or by email

In practice, however, blogs are much more than that. Unlike your company website, which is probably a fairly static presentation of company capabilities not that different from a brochure, blogs are a conversation. Bloggers write about and link to other bloggers’ ideas. They create space on their blog for readers to comment, and they reply back. This dynamic is why news can spread so very fast from blog to blog.

Blogs typically have a point of view and they are not overtly commercial or promotional, even if they are a company or product blog. It’s all about engaging in a conversation in an authentic, honest way.

The easiest way to understand microblogs – services like Twitter, Jaiku and Pownce – is to think of them as group instant messaging. It’s real-time one-to-many; unlike instant messaging, when you post a public message, everyone in your network can see and respond to it. The most popular service is Twitter, and companies like JetBlue, Comcast, Dell and online shoe store Zappos are already using it to communicate with customers.

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In part two, we'll look at social networks and communities.

Tags: customer service, customer satisfaction, blogs

Posted @ 1:06PM in Blogging, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, Social media | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Taking a blogger relations break

The good pitch/bad pitch series is going on a brief hiatus. Not because I don't have enough material, heavens no. I have plenty. Especially bad. 

Business has been slow this spring. Lots of interest. Lots of great feedback on the blog and the speaking gigs. Lots of proposals pending. But they just aren't closing quickly. So I am going to take the next week  to do some hard thinking about my business and marketing plan. I also have client deliverables to meet, so those two activities are going to consume the bulk of my attention.

However, fear not, dear readers. I will not leave you in the lurch. Over the next week, I will be posting Blogging and social media: What customer service professionals should know, and do, about it, an article based on the workshop I delivered at the SOCAP International Symposium in April 2008. 

Enjoy. I'll be back after the Independence Day holiday refreshed, reinvigorated and ready to rock and roll.

Posted @ 12:06PM in Blogging, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, Social media | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

May 17, 2008

Books, blogs and Burma

crossposted to Snapshot Chronicles

We interrupt our discussion of blogger relations, good and bad, to bring you some news from around the blogosphere from friends new and old.

First, from  my good friend Yvonne DiVita. In addition to being one of the leading experts on marketing to women online, Yvonne runs Windsor Media Enterprises, a  print-on-demand publishing company that guides authors through the self-publishing process. This fall, they are going to put on a conference called Books, Blogs and Beyond: Publishing 3.0, and they are asking for our  input to create a program truly relevant to the attendees' needs. If you are an aspiring author, or even just interested in the impact of social media like blogs on the publishing process, please take their survey. Let Yvonne and her team know what you'd like to know.

Speaking of authors, this week the momosphere was alive with buzz about Sleep Is for the Weak, the upcoming collection of essays by parent bloggers edited by Rita Arens. Read the story of how Rita shepherded this project from her dream to a reality on her blog Surrender, Dorothy, and then immediately add the blog to your feed reader. She is an excellent writer, as are the many moms, and one dad, included in the book. I can't wait to get my copy, already pre-ordered on Amazon.

One reason I am so excited about her book, apart from the fact that Rita is an awesome woman who deserves the success and accolades that are and will be coming her way as the result of the book, is that it will expose an even larger audience to the amazing writing on parent blogs. Major media always seems to focus on mom blogs as a market,  the privacy issue -- that parents are writing about their kids, and dooce. What it misses is what a damn fine group of writers this is, and not just Heather Armstrong. I read many blogs. Some of the best writing BY FAR is on parenting blogs, and not just about their kids. Politics, culture, sex, travel, art, photography, philanthropy, the economy. Just some of the topics you'll find on parenting blogs along with daycare, diapers and  disasters.

Finally, here's a simple way to donate to the relief effort in Burma that won't cost you a cent, just a comment. Leave a comment on this post at digTrends by May 31st, and Digital Influence Group will add $10.00 to its donation check to the US Campaign for Burma. They've capped the donation at $5,000 -- that's 500 comments on their post, and I hope they get there. Hat tip, Mack Collier on Twitter.

Tags: Windsor Media Enterprises, Yvonne DiVita, Sleep Is for the Weak, Rita Arens, US Campaign for Burma

Posted @ 12:05PM in Blogging, Books, Charity | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 5, 2008

New Comm Forum, blog move, Star-Ledger on Camp Baby

Just a few quick updates.

First, I will eventually get the slides from the Alumni panel at New Comm Forum up on the conference wiki, but for now, I've linked them here (PDF 2M). Thanks again to Jen McCLure, executive director of the Society for New Communications Research for supporting the panel and giving it such a nice slot on the program, and to the four alumni who shared their stories: Wendy Harman, Bob Siller, Doug Bardwell and Chris Turner.

Don't miss the Star-Ledger's story on Johnson's Camp Baby. No news in it for readers of this blog, but nice to see mainstream media do such a balanced blogging story.

Finally, Marketing Roadmaps will be moving to Word Press sometime this summer, but I promise to give plenty of warning and will run in parallel for at least a month. Thanks to everyone for their advice and words of encouragement.

Posted @ 8:05AM in Blogger relations, Blogging, Workshops | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 2, 2008

SOCAP Social Media 101 Workshop

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of giving a social media & blogging 101 workshop at the SOCAP (Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Business) International Symposium here in Boston.

Here are the slides for those attendees that want to download them. If you have trouble downloading just shoot me an email at sgetgood@getgood.com and I will email them to you.

If you are interested in the workshop for your organization, it lasts about two-hours, and focuses on the application of new media tools like blogs and Twitter to customer service and consumer affairs. Email me to discuss in more detail.

Download Blogging101_SOCAP.pdf (2396.7K)

Posted @ 9:05AM in Blogging, Workshops | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Will you follow me?

Friends and long-time readers, will you follow me if I move this blog off Typepad, which is driving me progressively crazy, over to a new address?

Here's my problem. This blog has a custom design. Which means I cannot easily use ANY of the Typepad widgets to add functionality. Everything has to be done by hand.

And some things don't work too well. Like the weird narrow delicious linkroll. Why is it so narrow? Who knows. I've messed around for a bit and it just gets narrower. I finally had to move my Blogroll to a separate page because it became one word per line and I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. Admittedly, I did not set up my design. But still... When I mess around with my Wordpress blogs, I can usually figure out what is going on. Here, not so much.

So I am contemplating switching over to Wordpress. I would leave the old Typepad blog up as an archive -- a single user Typepad account is not that expensive -- and just move forward on the new site from a cut-over date. With the flexibility of Wordpress, I think we could even have a search into the old content if you wanted it.

I am well aware that this move would put my rankings into the toilet, but since I don't really care about that, the more germane issue is: Will you come with me when I move? You I care about.

Should I do it or just continue to suck up the irritation that Typepad is becoming?

Posted @ 12:05AM in Blogging | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)

Apr 24, 2008

Where's Susan?

On vacation... sort of. For the past two days, I was at New Comm Forum in Santa Rosa, but other than that and checking email, I've been trying to enjoy our family vacation in San Diego. I have been posting pictures more or less regularly over at Snapshot Chronicles but posting here will continue to be light until next week. 

I did interview Lori Dolginoff of Johnson & Johnson about Camp Baby last Wednesday and am trying to get that post written this week. The early part of next week is crazy -- isn't it always after vacation? -- but once I get clear, I have a lot of material in backlog, including the HP Photo Books case study, some of the principal points from the Improve this Pitch panel at BlogHer, some notes on the alumni panel at New Comm Forum this week, plus hopefully a 360 degree view of the Katie Couric-mom blogger visit in early April, an outreach that impressed me with both its simplicity and impact.

In the meantime, if you are really missing my deathless (deadly?) prose, I was interviewed by Industry Week about blogger relations earlier this month. Here's the article.

 

Posted @ 10:04AM in Blogger relations, Blogging, Travel | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Apr 16, 2008

Reader Appreciation Day

Stefania (CityMama) tells us Twittees that today is Blog Reader Appreciation Day.

So here is a sweet video that my mom sent me of a baby elephant alternately cuddling with its mom and its sibling, taped from National Geographic's Wild Cam.

Thanks for sticking with me!

Posted @ 12:04AM in Blogging | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Apr 6, 2008

Almost Live from New York, BlogHer Business

I'm still catching up after a whirlwind 3 days in New York City at BlogHer Business, where I caught up with old friends, made some new ones and didn't get nearly enough sleep.

As promised, I will be posting the HP Case Study as well as some observations from the Improve this Pitch panel -- look for the posts mid-week --  but in the meantime, please check out the posts from the BlogHer live bloggers.

I was also interviewed by the Screengrab team from Weber Shandwick. They were doing a series of short interviews with participants. Here I am, almost live from New York, talking blogger relations:

Posted @ 6:04PM in Blogger relations, Blogging, BlogHer, BlogHer Business | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Apr 3, 2008

The power trip

Some of you may have seen my tweets yesterday about my broken iGo power supply. In which case you will know that the power trip to which I refer has little to do with my ego and everything to do with my journey to find something, anything that would power my laptop and my Blackberry.

Here is the woeful tale. On the train to NYC on Wednesday, my iGo power adapter cord broke. It being the ONLY power supply I have with me for my laptop and my Blackberry and my iPod, I was pretty well screwed. I called my husband from the train and asked him to call iGo customer support to find out where in NY, preferably near the hotel, I could get a replacement part. Luckily, I only bought it in late January and still had the box with the model number in my office.

God bless my husband and high marks for effort to the iGo support techs. They had to do multiple calls because they had to check with me twice with questions about the broken bits. The recommended solution was for me to pick up a replacement part here in NYC. The iGo support tech told David that Radio Shack and Best Buy stocked the part, so off I went to the Radio Shack in the Manhattan Mall right next to the hotel. Unfortunately, Radio Shack did not have the part, so the Radio Shack sales rep recommended a basic wall adapter. Ka-ching $40.00 Back to the hotel I go to charge my phone and get some work done.

Then we have the OOPS. The wall adapter does NOT work with the laptop tip, only the small device tips. Back I go to Radio Shack. Where I learn that you have to buy a full converter package to charge a laptop. Wondering why the Radio Shack sales rep earlier in the day didn't know that, off I go to Best Buy (12 blocks away) to see if they have the replacement part.

Best Buy on 44th & 5th doesn't stock ANY iGo accessories of ANY kind. And I'm getting desperate. So I buy a regular power supply. Ka-ching $90.00

If you are keeping track, I've now spent $130.00, and about 3 hours on my "power trip." On top of the time that David spent on the phone with the iGo support techs while I was on the train. Because a $130.00 product that I've had for about 2 months broke. If you are still keeping track, that's $260.00 all in.

Now, iGo is sending the replacement part to the house, but really what the company should have done is fed-exed the replacement part to me here at the hotel. At their cost, not mine. From some of my husband's comments, it sounds like he did discuss this possibility with the iGo tech, but the overnight shipping would have been at my cost, not iGo's. Since all I needed to do was buy a replacement part, why spend the money...

Well, it didn't work out that way. I think the iGo techs meant well, but the information was bad. And I wasted time and money.

Tuesday I wrote, once again, that companies don't seem to be replying to bloggers' unsolicited comments, and it doesn't seem to matter whether the posts are negative or positive. The silence is generally deafening unless it is a very high profile blogger. I have no illusions about my  profile so it doesn't surprise me that I've never heard from AAA, who I blasted in December, and Verizon Wireless, whose customer service I have complimented on more than one occasion both here and on Twitter.

Let's see if iGo is paying attention to the the blogosphere beyond the A-list...

The really top marks for this whole mess go to my husband for trying to sort this out for me while I was on the train. If you see him, tell him I said so.

He doesn't read my blog either.

Tags: iGo, customer service

Posted @ 11:04AM in Blogger relations, Blogging, Charity, Customers | Comments (3) | TrackBack (1)

Mar 30, 2008

An excellent read adventure

Average Jane was kind enough to include Marketing Roadmaps on her list of most excellent reads in the meme started by Kayla at Project Mommy. The terms and conditions of the award, as with most memes, are pretty simple: pass it on and link back to the originator. You can repeat blogs that have already been awarded, but I think it is a cop-out to include ones that are on the same list as you, which is why you won't see my list below repeating a good chunk of Average Jane's even though I regularly read many of these same blogs and consider them most excellent.

Rules say award at least 10 Excellent Blog Awards, so here are 10 (out of the 500+ feeds in my feed reader) that will give you an excellent reading adventure. In alphabetical order by blog name:

1. Communication Overtones
2. Galactica Sitrep
3. It's Not A Lecture
4. Mary Schmidt
5. Mom-101
6. mothergoosemouse
7. Motherhood Uncensored
8. Murphy's Law
9. Occam's Razr
10. PR-Squared

And if you've got a few extra minutes, please check out three blogs that I recently brought online for clients:

• Notes of the Urban Blues - all about the blues, with an emphasis on the Chicago urban blues
• Business Forward - a podcast for small and medium businesses
• For the Face of Your Business - thoughts on sales, service and leadership from my client Caras Training

Tags: excellent blog awards

Posted @ 1:03PM in Blogging, Customers, Memes | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Mar 18, 2008

Coming attractions on the Roadmap, Now playing elsewhere

Next month I'll be speaking at BlogHer Business and New Comm Forum. I gave you a bit of a preview of the panel I'm moderating at New Comm Forum last week. Later this week, I'll give you a sneak peek at the two BlogHer Business sessions.

In the meantime, please enjoy my posts now playing elsewhere:

• On Snapshot Chronicles, SciFi Sunday this week featured Battlestar Galactica
• On New England Mamas, I did a short review of Avenue Q, now playing at the Colonial Theater in Boston

Posted @ 10:03AM in Blogging | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Mar 9, 2008

New Voices of Experience: A New Comm Forum Alumni Panel

Last year after New Comm Forum, it was crystal clear that the most popular sessions were the ones that featured case studies and people's personal experiences. Of course, a certain amount of teaching-type panels and workshops are necessary at any conference, social media or otherwise, but once we get past the 101 level, we really want to know, what have other people done? What works? What doesn't?

And it's even better to hear from the people themselves, not just about them and their projects.

A common criticism of conferences is that it's always the same speakers,  the same material. I don't think that's true of New Comm Forum by any stretch, however, we do have a certain number of repeat players every year because one of the first speaker pools the Society for New Communications Research draws from is its Fellows. Most of whom are great speakers who deliver new content every year.

But.... thinking about both of these dynamics -- case studies and new voices -- I suggested to executive director Jen McClure that we do an alumni panel at the 08 conference. Recruit speakers who had attended a previous Society event but had never spoken at one, and who had a project from the past 18 months that they would be willing to share.

New Voices of Experience, the panel that resulted from our discussions last spring, will be the Wednesday April 23rd luncheon session at New Comm Forum 08. I'll be speaking with Doug Bardwell (Forest City Enterprises), Wendy Harman (Red Cross), Bob Siller (Altera) and Chris Turner (Christian Lifeway Resources) about what they learned and how they applied their new knowledge once they were back in the office.

I spoke with the panelists in a conference call last week and am excited about their stories.  Whether you work for a non-profit, B2B or B2C organization, there's something for everyone. We'll be talking about everything from social media in internal communications and lead generation to what's involved when you are trying to introduce social media into an established culture. There will be plenty of time for questions from the floor, and we are  looking forward to an interesting conversation.

As a speaker, I have a very limited number of deeply discounted registrations. Three. If you are interested, email me. First come, first served.

---

Shifting gears completely, I've decided to move one of the topics I occasionally talk about here to my personal/photo blog Snapshot Chronicles. Specifically, my obsession with certain science fiction television programs -- currently Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood and Stargate Atlantis. I'll still talk about sci fi here when there is a marketing, communications or social media angle. But I'm feeling the need to rant (and rave) more about the programs themselves, and that's really content that belongs on my personal blog, not my marketing blog. So, never fear, if you are interested in my thoughts on sci fi marketing, you'll still find them here. If you want to know why I think the PTB made a dreadful mistake in dumping Torri Higginson from Stargate or my speculation on who the final Cylon is, you'll find that over on Snapshot Chronicles.

Tags: SNCR, New Comm Forum

Posted @ 7:03PM in Blogging, Community, Social media | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Feb 25, 2008

Bloggers & Customer Service: Do blog complaints make a difference?

"Conventional" social media wisdom would have it that companies need to pay attention to the blogosphere, or risk their brands. For proof, out trots the example of Jeff Jarvis and Dell Hell. Jarvis' complaints about Dell customer service percolated up to mainstream media and are oft-cited as the impetus behind Dell's *big* move into social media about a year ago.

Now, you may sense a certain cynical undertone in the above paragraph, and you would be right. While I absolutely believe that companies should be listening to what bloggers -- their customers -- say, I am regularly provided with proof that either companies aren't listening or they are, and have no bloody idea what to say, or how to say it, when faced with blogosphere complaints, or compliments, about products and services.

My most recent proof:

Ike Pigott has been tracking the response, or lack thereof, to a post on his blog complimenting Blockbuster on its customer service. He also divined that Canon saw, but did not respond to positive comments about its products.

While I haven't made quite such a science of it, I have written about customer service on this blog on more than one occasion. Most recently about AAA's piss-poor performance with my flat tire before Christmas. Any word from AAA? Nope. And I've also mentioned my general, and unexepected,  pleasure with Verizon's support of its cellular customers. On every occasion that I've had to call, I've been treated well. Most recently by a lovely young lady named Amy who offered a credit on something that had gone wrong before I asked. Any response from Verizon? Nope.

Not to mention my friend Mary Schmidt, whose interactions with American Airlines prove without a shadow of a doubt that the airline just doesn't get it.

This is by far a scientific survey, which is why I am so pleased that the Society for New Communications Research is working with corporate partner Nuance to understand the extent to which bloggers think their opinions are, or are not, impacting companies. Please take the survey and let us know whether you think Corporate America is listening. SNCR is offering a special discounted registration to New Comm Forum in April for those that complete the survey. Direct link to survey here.

And that, my friends, is well worth it. There's a great roster of speakers and opportunities to network with other communicators at New Comm Forum. I'm moderating the luncheon keynote on the first day, a panel of conference alumni coming back to tell how they applied what they learned at the conference at their organizations. More on that next week.

---

Client News: Maxwell Street Documentary is doing a T-shirt giveaway at the blog Notes of the Urban Blues. It is a very cool shirt. Just tell us about your favorite Blues artist and you can be entered to win.

And please check out the new podcast Business Forward, strategic advice for small and medium businesses, that I am producing for client GuideMark.

Tags: customer service, American Airlines, AAA, Blockbuster, SNCR, New Comm Forum,  Nuance

Posted @ 6:02PM in Blogger relations, Blogging, Customers, Marketing, PR, Social media | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

Feb 8, 2008

I am woman, hear me speak

“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?” - Rabbi Hillel

Diversity at business, and especially social media, conferences. Still a concept more than a reality, and quite frankly, it feels like we've been pushing this rock uphill forever. This week, Lena West started the ball rolling again over at Lipsticking, and Jeremiah Owyang and Elisa Camahort both joined the fray. And now me.

As we all have before. More times than any of us wishes.

Read their posts. Read the comments. There are so many people speaking eloquently on this subject... again ... that I don't have much to add.

Except the following: VOTE WITH YOUR FEET.

Stop going to conferences that do not embrace diversity. And not just gender. A conference full of white faces, whether they are male or female, does not embrace our population. Online or off.

Tell the organizers why you won't attend ... sponsor ... exhibit.

It will not change if we do not stop talking about it and start doing something.

For all these reasons, and many more,  I embraced BlogHer from the beginning and am so proud to be part of that community. Man or woman, I urge you to attend BlogHer Business this April in NYC and BlogHer in San Francisco in July.

One of the sessions I'm part of at BlogHer Business is a panel on "Improve this Pitch." We will be focusing on pitches to bloggers  that are ok but could stand some improvement.  No worries though, we promise to share some really bad pitches for your enjoyment as well. Including the crappiest pitch ever. Really.

I'm also doing a case study with Victoria Naffier from HP and Liz Gumbinner, Mom-101, about the blogger outreach programs for HP Photo Books last fall. 

Another conference I urge you to check out is New Comm Forum in Santa Rosa, California at the end of April. I'll be moderating the luncheon keynote on the first day, a panel of alumni from the conference coming back to share how they used the knowledge gained at the conference in their organizations. Planning to come to New Comm? Next year, it could be you.

Tags: BlogHer, BlogHer Business, New Comm Forum, HP, HP Photo Books, gender

Posted @ 8:02PM in Blogger relations, Blogging, BlogHer, BlogHer Business, Gender | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

Dec 21, 2007

WhyMommy & give Peas a chance

cross posted to Snapshot Chronicles

Over the past week or so, a movement took shape on Twitter to support a fellow blogger Susan Reynolds recently diagnosed with a difficult-to-treat form of breast cancer. As a result of a comment she made about using frozen peas to relieve pain in the affected breast, folks started adding images of peas to their Twitter avatars in a show of support. I don't know Susan, but many friends and acquaintances do, and  I truly admire bloggers facing life-threatening diseases who write about their battle in an effort to help others.

So,  I decided I would put up a new Twitter avatar. A decision made easier when the Queen of Spain's talented husband offered to make pea avatars for people, meaning you wouldn't be subjected to my sketchy graphics skills.

However, I decided I didn't just want peas. I've written here before about a courageous woman fighting inflammatory breast cancer, Susan Niebur, also known as WhyMommy, who used her blog and the community of mommy bloggers to spread the word about this rare form of cancer.

I wanted my avatar to honor both Susans.

So today, in their honor and also in memory of friends and family lost to cancer, my Twitter avatar is a pink Y, for WhyMommy, wearing a pea necklace, for Susan Reynolds.

Tags: Susan Reynolds, WhyMommy

Posted @ 8:12AM in Blogging | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Dec 19, 2007

Lame web celebrity lists and gender equality

Yesterday, Forbes published its annual web celebrity list and last night, we had a bit of chatter on Twitter about it. I promised a post to further explain my thoughts on the list. Here goes.

There's more than one problem here, so let's start with the most obvious. Do we really need yet another web celebrity list?

If we truly believe what we say, that social media is about more than celebrity or rank, that it is about the democratization of media, that the long tail is just as important as the mass market, then we need to put our money where our mouths are.

We need to look deeper than the A-list. And not be fooled by lists like this one that merely scratch the surface of the richness of the blogosphere.

Now, I am not at all surprised that Forbes takes the easy way out by pandering to our culture of celebrity by creating a list that seems more appropriate to PEOPLE or the STAR. It's a chance to show that they are more than just a stodgy mainstream business publication. Oooh Perez Hilton in Forbes... who would have thought....

Unfortunately, this perpetuates a misconception about what social media is, and what it can become. What we can become as a result.

Not only is that a real shame, but also it goes a long way to explaining why so many companies get it wrong when they engage. If we treat social media just like everything else, why should we expect that they'd "get it?" That they'd understand the fundamental differences between mass markets and the long tail, between bloggers and journalists. And so on.

The other problem is the gender imbalance. The Forbes list, like so many others, suffers from an over-representation of white middle class men. Only four women out of the 25. That's 16%, for the math jocks out there. That doesn't match the demographics of either the US population or Internet users.

The Forbes list is merely one among many that suffers from this problem. In the tweet-around last night, Chris Baskind forwarded me yet another recent  list that purported to summarize the definitive blog posts of 2007. Just as bad. I counted 38 different authors (many of the same ones as in the Forbes list by the way) and 5 women. That's about 13%.

Quite often, these lists mention the same women. Not to take away from their work and significant contributions, but there truly are more than a handful of women engaged in social media.  And don't get me started on the fact that the "definitive posts" post attributes CommonCraft's great "RSS explained" video to Lee Lefever alone. No mention of business and life partner Sachi LeFever. 

Now, we could say that these are stupid, lame lists, and why would women and minorities want to be on them anyway?

Unfortunately, that would miss the point of true equality. 

True equality means that women and minorities should be adequately represented everywhere.

Certainly anything that claims to be a definitive summary of web influence.

And even lame web celebrity lists.

Tags: Forbes, gender, web celebrity list, a-list

Posted @ 10:12AM in Blogging, Gender | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

Dec 13, 2007

Media Bullseye Link Bait

Chip Griffin published some lovely link bait on Media Bullseye today, and since I think contrarians who have the guts to publish under their real names should be rewarded, I'm biting :-)

Chip's thesis is that there are a number of social media "rules" that just don't make sense. For the most part, I agree.

As I've written here many times, to argue that there is only one right way to do something is silly. So while I personally prefer blogs that allow comments and publish RSS feeds, I understand why companies and individuals might choose another path (#1 & 2). Likewise, I'm not terribly fond of anonymous blogs, but realize that there are some situations where anonymity is necessary.

Press releases... Amen, Chip, amen. As I've said before, and will again, it isn't the press release form on its own that engenders the negativity (die press release die.) It is bad, irrelevant pitching. That said, there is a lot of goodness in making the news release more social media friendly and the folks at SHIFT among others deserve kudos for pushing the envelope ( #3 & 4).

Messages. Conversation. Audience. And so on. Chip makes some very good points, and I urge you to read his post with an open mind.

The one point upon which I really disagree is ghostwriting. I do not believe in ghostwriting for blogs.  Sure we know that CEOs and celebrities don't write their speeches. Talk show hosts don't write all their own bits. And if you didn't know this before the WGA strike, I hope you know it now.

If your CEO doesn't want to blog, fine. There are other ways to bring his or her thoughts to the customers. And other ways for the company to engage. All of which are reasonable approaches.

Hiring someone to ghostwrite a CEO blog is not.

Other than that? Rules are made to be broken. Isn't that what this social media stuff is all about anyway?

Tags: Chip Griffin, social media, Media Bullseye

Posted @ 7:12PM in Blogging, Social media | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Dec 10, 2007

Are rankings rank?

Regular readers of this blog on Typepad (versus in a feed reader) will notice something different this morning. I deleted the badges for the AdAge Power 150 and Mack Collier's Top Marketing Blogs.

I've never cared too much for blog ranking systems. Ranking systems are popularity contests, of one form or another, and just not my thing. I enjoy writing Marketing Roadmaps, am thrilled and honor