We all know that the blogosphere is an immensely large community with interconnections between bloggers and readers everywhere. The blogosphere is continually growing with powerful influentials who can change the way we think and look at things.

Internet marketing company eMarketer Mobile recently published an article that proves just how influential bloggers, whether hobbyists or professionals, truly are when it comes to conversation about products or brands.

About 38 percent of all bloggers post about brands that they love or hate and about 34 percent write product or service reviews, according to the “State of the Blogosphere 2011″ report from Technorati.

In addition, Technorati reported that about 29 percent of bloggers were influenced by other blogs that they read last year. This year, the number increased to 68 percent, which is more than half of bloggers.

With the increasing numbers and influence of bloggers, it is essential for brand representatives to maintain good relations with these individuals. We wouldn’t want another episode between The Bloggess and Brandlink now, would we?

Click here for the full article from eMarketer Mobile titled “How Blogs Influence Purchases and Recommendation.”

Related articles

• Technorati State of the Blogosphere in 2011 (nextbigfuture.com)
• State of the blogosphere 2011: Using social networks for self-promotion (venturebeat.com)
• Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2011 (blogworld.com)
• Trouble Ensues When Brandlink Staffer Hits ‘Reply All’ (mediabistro.com)
• Bloggers Have More of an Influence in 2011 (deirdrebreakenridge.com)
• From Blog to Brand – an Interview with the Miscellaneous Mum (prwarrior.typepad.com)
• NetShelter’s New Platform Curates Bloggers For Advertisers (forbes.com)
• NetShelter Technology Media Unveils “inPowered” Platform for Brand Advertisers (prnewswire.com)
• BrandLink Communications Has the Internet Drop on its Head (whatever.scalzi.com)
• 2010 Technorati State of the Blogosphere Report Release Today (prweb.com)
• From Blog to Brand – an Interview with the Miscellaneous Mum (prwarrior.typepad.com)
• NetShelter’s New Platform Curates Bloggers For Advertisers (forbes.com)
• NetShelter Technology Media Unveils “inPowered” Platform for Brand Advertisers (prnewswire.com)
• BrandLink Communications Has the Internet Drop on its Head (whatever.scalzi.com)
• 2010 Technorati State of the Blogosphere Report Release Today (prweb.com)

At Abraham Harrison, a bulk of what we do is online outreach; finding optimal blogs and online databases to feature the clients that we partner with. It’s a full blown science trying to understand what conversational skills appeal to one blogger versus another but today’s infographic tries to tackle the variety of relationships we come into contact with:

Related articles

• Agencies are too afraid of bloggers to do their job (chrisabraham.com)
• Fire for effect when you can’t get a direct bead on your market (chrisabraham.com)
• Write your blog to be taken completely out of context (chrisabraham.com)
• Free ‘Twitter for Business’ Webinar on April 30 (socialmedia.biz)

We’ve all read our fair share of blog posts. Trends start to emerge; patterns in tone and mechanics and particularly urban legends of advice which we should all begin to ignore. Ali Luke over at DailyBlogTips has written her fair share of blog posts and targets the number one tidbit of blogging advice that she thinks is overrated-

Blogging Everyday.

Luke believes that there are several drawbacks to blogging everyday:

#1 You’re wasting your time

#2 Your posts are poor quality

#3 Readers don’t necessarily like it

#4 You’ll burn yourself out

It depends on the blogger. This may be true if you’re a young and developing blog written by an individual. Luke suggests that instead of blogging incessantly once a day  just to have something in by midnight, blog twice a week with engaging content that your viewers can look forwards to. Spend just as much time editing your post as you do writing it. Spend just as much time promoting your post on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook as you do editing it. Then communicate with your readers. What do they want to read about?

In fact, I’ll put this to my audience. Audience- what would you like to learn about? Tweet at @marcon or at @jenna_levy and I will take all of your suggestions into account.

If you are a larger company with an increased following, then I disagree with all of the above. At Abraham Harrison, we’re a communications firm dedicated to spreading the word about not only our clients, but advances in technology and social media, and firsthand media news. If we’re not blogging everyday then we’re doing something wrong, because we’re not providing our audience with entertaining and educational information as often as we should be.

Mitch Joel at Twist Image is of the same mindset and frames Luke’s opinions for company branding instead of individual. He sees blogging everyday as a necessity because it’s about practice and experience. Habits are hard to create.

Ultimately, Blogging is not easy, it’s not obvious and it’s hard (very hard) to get real traction with as a Marketing engine. Nothing happens unless you are consistent in your effort and work. It has to be relevant to your audience and yes, you need a high level of frequency in your publishing habits. But, you have to define what “consistent,” “relevant” and “frequency” means to you and your audience. Nobody can do that for you.

-Joel

Joel compares blogging for the mind to exercise for the body. Yes, the journey to the computer may long and arduous, but when you press publish, it’s all worth it for your brand. My favorite piece of advice by Joel is “…use your Blog as a sketchpad for your day and the industry that you serve.” Branding is up to you, blogging can only serve to assist it along its journey.

Do you think that it’s necessary to blog everyday?

That shirt you’re wearing–one look with the distinctive horse on the side tells everyone whose got you branded. That coffee cup you’re holding–ah, you’re a Starbucks woman! Your baseball cap with the prominent swoosh, the handbag covered with the letter C…

You’re branded, branded, branded, branded.

It’s time for you–and me–to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson for anyone who’s interested in creating a brand, rather than just a message, that engages others.

Stacey Acevero, the social media community manager at Vocus and PRWeb, shares four simple rules to not only make your brand talk but engage with its audience:

But why is branding important?

Branding is more important than ever due to increasing advertising clutter, media fragmentation, the demand of products and the limitless choices of every product category.

When customers buy a brand, they buy its values and promises, and feel that their expectations are aligned with the company. The product or service the customers buy and the quality experience they receive is what persuades them to buy the same brand again.

Successful branding efforts build strategic awareness so that your audience not only recognizes your brand, but they also understand the distinctive qualities that make it better than the competition.

Remember, creating a personable, engaged brand is no easy task. It takes time and patience. Following these four steps will help you on your way to having a brand with which people can’t wait to engage in. From there, success is surely to follow.

To view Stacey Acevero’s list in more detail, click here.

As digital engagement spreads from the web (Facebook, Twitter, websites) to smart phones and tablets, apps have become a critical factor to gain user attention by providing a function, service or information. It’s more than the icing on these devices that we buy and use. With the smartphone/tablet dimension, apps are embedded into the user experience landscape as serious, useful and fun additions to their device. Often the availability of the apps to improve the function of the devices from phones to tablets and the variety of apps available make the choice of host product purchase a real effort in research prior to purchase.
(Article first published in abbreviated presentation as Tech Talk: Create Your Own App in About 60 Minutes with Appsbar.com – for Free!! on Blogcritics.org)

There are a few key few issues concerning the app marketplace. First is the exclusivity of an app to a particular platform. Often your favorite iPhone app is not available on Android or Windows or tablet platforms. Cost is an issue. While there are a number of apps in the free to three dollar range, there are apps with premium prices ranging from five to twenty dollars. The third issue is that perhaps the app or function you want or need is not currently available or doesn’t function in the way you need. I heard of a woman who wanted a “mirror” app so that she could see what she looked like on the fly– but she couldn’t figure out where to find that app.

Should you be so entrepreneurial as to want to create an app, you have a few choices. If you were smart enough to get into IT when in college or are taking classes for that, you know where you can make extra bucks — creating apps on the side. If you are a “geek freak”, you could dig into this as a DIY project and buy the books to create an app yourself. Or if you are like the rest of us (especially moi), you could hire a programmer and find out what it will cost. The price tag– even on the bargain end can be about $3000. Most of the pro apps cost about $10,000 and can cost up to $100,000 or more depending on the sophistication of the app. The time frame for app development can range from six weeks to three months. Until now, these were the only options you had.

The apps paradigm has shifted courtesy of Appsbar.com, an open-to-all-ages website that offers members the ability to quickly and easily build an app for a specific platform with lots of bells and whistles in about 30-60 minutes– and it’s free! Plus once you create the app, it’s funneled to the Apple, Android or Windows markets for others to download. It’s a win-win proposition. In a little more than 2 weeks since the site launched, eleven thousand apps have been created.

Appsbar.com is a new website that allows anyone of almost any age to build their own app on a variety of platforms including iPhone, Android and Windows and also get them into their respective markets. The “digital engagement” that appsbar.com provides allows you — as the user– to create the app for anything or everything you want– depending on how much time and creativity you bring to the table. Generally speaking, if you are thinking about a relatively simple app to build, it could be done in about 30 minutes. The more complex you want to make it, the longer it will take– 60 minutes is about the baseline. However if you get really creative and want the veritable kitchen sink, it could take longer.

Here’s what the site (and their press release) says you can create on an appsbar app
•Event Notifier – which delivers real-time or scheduled notifications to app users.
•Menu – allows creating of catalog of products or services.
•Form Builder – which can be used for customer service surveys, a restaurant to-go order, or answers to questions asked through the app.
•Social Interaction – adds the ability to share content within an app across social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
•Soundboard – lets users create a unique “app ringtone” by uploading any sound which can play when a user shakes or taps their mobile device.
In addition, appsbar can also handle RSS, photos and videos like other similar services

This isn’t just for play boys and girls. This is serious business masquerading behind a fun game-like wizard that will be blowing away the competition in a very short time. As the community grows, watch what happens as the members connect, communicate and collaborate. It’s bound to create something exponentially better than anything out there. This isn’t just for consumers only– bloggers. brands, companies can create their own apps for micro-consumer engagement. There are a wealth of uses for this application wizard.

I was able to snag an interview with CEO/founder Scott Hirsch to talk about this new site and honestly- to ask a lot of questions because appsbar.com is as big a shift in paradigm in the app world as iPhone was to cell phones. Flat out truth, appsbar is on its’ way to changing the perspective of the marketplace and how apps are created and how much the public wants to be involved in the creation. So far there has been little public involvement until now because the public had no way to get involved in the interface of building an app. Hirsch and company have remedied that situation.

How?
1) it’s free
2) they created a very simple wizard to walk you through the building process so that anyone from 18 to 70+ can create their own app.
3) the collective imagination of the appsbar user community is creating new processes for and ways to create apps and the appsbar team is learning from that collective imagination just how to integrate or improve upon what the users have created or asked for to facilitate the building of the most customized app around at the phenomenal price of free plus your own time.

I had the opportunity to interview CEO Scott Hirsch about Appsbar.com and ask a slew of questions about the site– and app development; questions about funding, advertising and how long the site will remain free. The podcast provides answers to all these questions.

I tried the Appsbar.com wizard to create an Android app for my blog. The app creation wizard is easy to use and it’s a lot more fun than a Zynga game. Pick your platform and get started. Do realize that after you complete the first version of your app, you will want to upgrade it as you figure out all the options that you can add to the app and how to make sure that it integrates with your goal.

The community of members can share information and also ask for additional features (coupons, discounting capacity) and the Appsbar.com team will start working on it. While it’s taken me a little longer than the hour, it’s because I kept changing the visuals, the essential app is easily done in 60 minutes or less and I took longer because as I saw the options come up, I was playing with the integration of those options into the app. In other words, I was throwing the kitchen sink into the app and it was definitely fun. Check out the site www.appsbar.com

Thank you to Scott Hirsch of Appsbar.com and Joe McGurk/ Rubenstein PR for facilitating this interview which literally was done in 3 days.

Thanks to Chris Abraham & MarketingConversation.com too.

Stevie Wilson,
LA-Story.com

Marketers spend a lot of time coming up with a brand name, an it takes a lot of creative and logical thinking to draw a brand logo, but what does your brand really mean? What does it stand for?

The word “brand” doesn’t just pertain to your company logo, or your name, it stands for something else, something deeper than what we can perceive by just looking at the surface, something more valuable. Your brand is the whole personality of your company. It may only take you a couple of hours to come up with a catchy brand name and an eye-catching logo but building a brand is a continuous process.

Brad VanAuken answers the question “What Is A Brand?” :

A brand is a source of a promise to its customers. It promises relevant differentiated benefits. It does so not only to place itself into the purchase consideration set, but even more importantly, to be the brand chosen from that purchase consideration set. This is also sometimes referred to as the brand’s unique value proposition. Whether it is called a unique value proposition or a promise of relevant differentiated benefits, it is very important that the promise or proposition be delivered consistently at each point of customer contact, time after time.

I would like to view a “brand” as a person’s name. It isn’t just a word or a common noun – it is by name that we recognize each person’s identity, and personality. The person’s dignity and honor is all attached to his name, and this is also true in brands. As a person, we do not want to be remembered only by name, we do not want everyone to know our names and forget who we really are. We like people to remember who and what we are.

On that note, brands symbolizes not only the company but the people who are behind it, the quality of their product, the efficiency of their services and how committed they are to their customers.

And that being said, the most important is to nurture and build the brand by actions that are appropriate.

Some brands and marketers utilize social media as part of their marketing strategies blindly. They don’t have a clear view on what part social media really should play in their strategies.

The issues raised by this carelessness can be solved by determining the expectations of social media from the customers.

Sally Falkow presents a list of what customers are expecting when they participate with your brand through social media in her “What Your Customers Expect in Social Media” :

What customers want and expect from a company organization:

• A collaborative relationship
• Marketing relevancy
• Choice
• Good value
• Trust/piece of mind
• Prompt dispute resolution (customers don’t care what department you are in)
• Feeling of importance
• Personalization
• Transparency
• Accountability
• Consistent presence
• Two way communication

To summarize the list, customers expect to connect to you, up close and personal, and look to build a relationship deeper than just a buyer-seller relationship.

These things should be taken into account if your brand is going to participate in social media. Of course the business itself should expect some things from utilizing social media to be able to address the future issues.

Brands should expect:

• Huge amount of noise and clatter. You are letting everyone be connected to you, therefore you will hear people from all sides of the room.
• Valuable insights. Brands should expect that there are lots of useful insights from loyal and customers that care about the brand.
• Tons of haters. “You cannot please everybody” should be implanted in every marketer’s mind. Sometimes the popularity of one brand and effectiveness of the campaign can be measured from its haters. The more the haters you have the larger the audience you have reached.
• Negative publicity and Destructive comments. Of course haters won’t just sit there and tell you they hate you. They will find ways to say they hate you that will resound over and over again or have a great impact on the campaign. Brands should learn to filter these and interpret them carefully to be converted into positivity.

A social networking site is a place where we can hang out with friends, friends that are far away or friends that we don’t see everyday. These networks, like Facebook and Twitter reach to the corners of the earth, and can send your message to wherever they may be. This is one of the great things about social networking but this is also one reason why you should be careful while you are at it.

Facebook and Twitter let us connect with people who we want to talk to, especially in hard times. These are some of the places we can seek sympathy or a place where we can shout our deepest regrets, frustrations and other complaints. Twitter and Facebook sometimes become oceans of stress where employees or students and others swim after a long hard day.

You have so much freedom that you can even curse at your boss, call your professors names or just let your anger flow out into the web. But what if your boss or your professor saw your post? What if he is following you on twitter and even retweeted your tweet? That is where your story ends.

There are cases of employees being fired because of what we can call social media misuse. We may forget that however a thing was done, it was still done. We may be too confident using social networks and actually forget that there are people listening to what we say. Priya Ramesh relays a list of what we can implement as rules in using social media in the post “Ten Things to Include in Your Social Media Policy” on CRT/tanaka :

• Be conversational, participate on social networks in a meaningful way and refrain from saying anything that might hurt your employer’s, customers’ and in some cases even competitors’ reputation.
• Everything that you post online is visible by all. You do not have permission to share any information that compromises [Company X] policy, management positions and customer information.
• Please refrain from posting items that could reflect negatively on the company’s reputation including comments or other posts about drug or alcohol abuse, profanity, off-color or sexual humor, and other inappropriate conduct.
• Respect the law, including those laws governing defamation, discrimination, harassment, and copyright and fair use.
• Don’t use the company logo, unless specifically authorized to do so.
• Don’t reference staff, members, partners or vendors without their approval.
• If you publish content to any website outside and it has something to do with work you do or subjects associated with [Company X], use a disclaimer such as this: “The views expressed here are my own and don’t necessarily represent my company’s positions, strategies, or opinions.”
• Ensure that your social networking conduct is consistent with the all policies contained in the Employee Handbook/HR guidelines.
• Make sure that your online activities do not interfere with your job performance.
• If you see something that questions your company’s credibility or any customer complaints, alert your PR/social media/marketing team that’s responsible for responding back. DO NOT feel like you need to respond to negative comments online.

Just being professional inside and outside the company and being reminded that we shouldn’t let social media take away our human norms can help us prevent this kind of trouble. Also by remembering to respect our fellow humans be it in person or online we won’t lose anything.

The first thing people will encounter (and you hope that it stays with them) is your BRAND or brand name. Brands need to tell consumers something about you and they need to stand for something so that consumers can relate to them personally.

Having a good brand will give you an instant advertisement. Brad VanAuken states in his “Brands Must Stand For Something” :

People connect emotionally with brands that stand for things that are important to them. They become loyal to those brands and they become advocates for those brands. They also often use those brands as a way to say, “This is what I stand for.” That is, people use brands to express themselves.

Now days almost everyone is on Facebook, some of us, or shall I say the majority of us treat Facebook as our own personal journals. We share every bit of information we would like to be known almost everyday. We share photos of the most embarrassing moments, captured moments of happiness and other feelings, but the only difference is, we not only share these to our private diaries or journals, we share these to the world.

Because of this situation, we should be careful about what we post, what we share on Facebook, because the information we share reflects what we are – who we are in the real world.

Yes, it is fun to share pictures while you’re partying, videos of funny moments, sharing a status update of something you made out of a crazy moment, but this is proof that you did something and now you are shouting it to the whole world.

You never know who will check your Facebook account, your professor, your future employer, your boss, girlfriends mother, or whosoever. Would the content you shared on Facebook be beneficial or helpful for you?

Jen Williams relates how sharing unwanted content can get back to you in her “Watch What You Say: Facebook Sees You!”

A social media professor at Stanford University, Howard Rheingold, sees the effects of bad decisions now amongst his former students. Some of them have been denied jobs or passed over for positions in their postgraduate field. This has been mostly due to their Facebook activity that potential employers have looked at, and decided that the person was not a good fit for their company.

Professor Rheingold knows that the questionable and inappropriate behavior exemplified by some of his students is still penalzing them, even five or more years later. But, he has also begun to notice that because of that social networking backlash, students are beginning to change their behavior, or at least watch more carefully what they put on their pages.

The world will tend to see only a stain on an otherwise clear glass.

As early as now, think back, review, assess what you are posting and publishing. It takes a long time to develop a personal brand, but a few silly photos to destroy it.

Brands need to participate in a community, either one that they have created or a preexisting one that they have joined. Online communities can contribute to the brand’s influence and growth big time.

It is not necessary for a brand to create its own community from scratch, but rather it should build on the already existing community of people who care about the brand. Cultivate it and let it grow. With the help of the people in it and the brand itself.

Engaging in an online community means always contributing, not taking. Always contribute to the welfare of the community not always directly to the welfare of the brand. In the end, whatever good you do for the community, reflects on the brand, and thus stregnthens it.

Rich Millington lists some key rules for engaging in an online community in his “How Brands Should Engage With Online Communities“:

• Respond to discussions about the brand. Most communities have a search feature. Use this to figure out what people are saying about the brand and respond appropriately. If you can’t respond to a complaint directly, ask the member how they would like it to be resolved.
  Participate in debates not connected to your products/services. This is easy, safe, territory and establishes your credibility as a serious participant in the community.
• Make friends. Be genuine members of the community. Make friends with others. Engage in the off-topic areas of the community. Congratulate people on their achievements. Suggest things in the community. Be a person first, a company representative second.
• Ask for opinions on products/services. Be careful with this. But, occasionally, ask people for their opinions on a specific aspect of a product or a service. Giving members options or choices works better than generic What do you think of our new {widget}.
• Ask for help. If you need people to help your company with something, ask for help.
• Offer something exclusive to the community. If your company has the means to offer some exclusive products or run a competition, contact the community admin and see if they are ok with you doing it.
• Give exclusive information. Give members of a community some exclusive information about your brand or product. This doesn’t have to be big, but just things that will solicit interest and start some rumours about your work.
• Contact the community owner/admin. When possible, contact the owner/admin of the community. Ask if you can do anything to help or if there are any special brand guidelines to be aware of.
• Disclosure. Use the signature to reveal that you are an employee of the company you work for. Where relevant, include it in the text of your messages e.g. “I agree, at Widgetco we tried both of these options….”

What Not To Do

• Have a company account. Accounts should always be registered under individual names, not company names. If you must, mix the two. EA_Phil being an example, but never use a WidgetCo as the name of your account.
• Promote. Any direct promotion is likely to have an adverse effect on your efforts.
• Subtly promote. An entire category of pretending to participate but doing so in such a way as to promote your brand.
• Criticize. The rules are stricter for company representatives here than they are for the average member. I’d say never criticize anyone, for anything, at anytime. Especially don’t attack a competitor.
  Engage in religious/political debate. It’s just not worth it no matter how right you are.

Growth is what we always seek in everything we do or from something we are participating in. We aspire to grow, in terms of business and in personality as humans.

What is the most necessary thing for us and for businesses to grow?

The first thing we need in order to ensure growth is space where we can stretch and grow tall or grow wide. A place that can hold a larger volume of us and a greater area that we can eventually occupy.

Take a bonsai for example. It is an art of planting miniature trees from Japan. These bonsai are very beautiful, but their very obvious trait is being small. The trees are confined to a small tray or pot so they won’t grow as big as it they are naturally supposed to be. It is deprived of space so it stays small.

This is the same for a man who lives alone, someone who doesn’t have friends, doesn’t have place to go. A man that doesn’t go out ever and a man that has no connection to the social world. He’s a man without friends. This man won’t grow socially because he has no where to go and no one to grow with. The bonsai is also like a business operating in a small city, without affiliates, a business that considers the boundaries of the city a dead end.

Social media helps us break the walls, the boundaries, the pot that is preventing us as human beings or as businessees to grow. It stretches our dwelling place, our reach and the place in which we can move to and fro, therefore giving us more opportunities and a larger space.

Social media solves our issues of being confined to a small place by giving us a tool, a powerful tool that lets us explore the social world and be connected to the rest of it. By being connected to it we are learning to adopt to the wide world and with this we are having a larger place to grow, the whole world.

Growth will not be possible if we are confined to a small definite area, break free, breathe and explore the wonders of growing.

By Lauren Cook: Never has the power of Twitter been more evident than in the last few weeks and months. Once known only by “techies” and early adopters, this micro-blogging site is now slowly infiltrating into the mainstream and more importantly, affecting the way many of us communicate, listen, and learn.

For those not familiar with Twitter, here’s a quick introduction: Twitter is a free social networking service that allows users to send and read each other’s updates (known as “tweets”) that are limited to 140 characters in length (think two sentences at most). At its inception in 2006, Twitter (then known as “Obvious”) was originally created as a tool to be used internally by the podcasting company, Odeo. Two years later, over 3 million individuals worldwide have Twitter accounts and the rate in which news spreads has shortened to, well, 140 characters.

Initially, the goal of Twitter was to allow users to share with their “followers” exactly what they were doing at that moment (ie: “It’s Monday morning and I’m having Cheerios for breakfast”). A common misconception among those who aren’t familiar with Twitter believe this is still the case with the micro-blogging site. In fact, Twitter has grown and expanded and its capabilities have far surpassed solely communicating the mundane details of everyday life.

For instance, take the recent Mumbai attacks in November, 2008. During the three-day battle that left more than 100 dead, social-networking services such as Twitter and Flickr were flooded with news, rumors and pictures of the tragedy by what is now termed as “citizen journalists” — users on Twitter that were tweeting breaking news faster than mainstream media could pick up the same information on the news wires. Many people now describe the situation in Mumbai as “Twitter’s moment.” As a result, major media outlets now uses Twitter to help communicate the real-time public sentiment on various issues, such as Presidential elections, natural disasters, and current events.

Abraham & Harrison has been at the forefront of the Twitter phenomenon since its public offering, sucessfully leveraging the power of micro-blogging for many of its clients. One only has to take a quick look at Abraham & Harrison’s President and COO, Chris Abraham, who is known as one of the top Twitterers of Social Media news, having over 2,700 followers, to understand Abraham & Harrison’s extensive knowledge of cutting edge social media tools.

A fantastic example of Abraham & Harrison’s knowledge of Twitter is illustrated by our work with the client, The Fresh Air Fund, a non-profit agency providing free summer vacations in the country to more than 1.7 million New York City children from disadvantaged communities.

With Abraham & Harrison’s help, The Fresh Air Fund created a Twitter profile to communicate with other NPOs, current volunteers, potential families interested in The Fresh Air Fund, and donors. In just three months of tweeting, The Fresh Air Fund Twitter profile has over 600 followers and has reached thousands of individuals who they otherwise would never have been in contact with. Not only does Abraham & Harrison help guide

The Fresh Air Fund on how to best utilize Twitter in a respectful and value-driven way, Chris Abraham is also eager to help “retweet” The Fresh Air Fund’s Twitter content, meaning that over 3,000 users are seeing this non-profit’s messaging, creating a critical relationship with The Fresh Air Fund that results in support of the NPO. Even more impressive, The Fresh Air Fund was recently nominated to be a part of the “Top Ten List of Twitterers Who Will Change The World” — a fantastic feat for an NPO who has only been a part of the Twittosphere for three months.

Are you thinking about joining Twitter? One word of warning: You can’t become a Twitter sensation overnight. As Chris Abraham says, “Growing a social media profile is like growing a coral reef: after seeding the reef, there are so many things that need to happen before a reef blooms ‘in its own.’” With Twitter, time and commitment are key in order to position yourself as a valuable addition to the community. “You need to be generous — give more than you take — and you need to be committed to the long term,” Chris advises. And it’s not all about your follower numbers.

For instance, once could argue that Lance Armstrong isn’t a valuable member of the Twitter community given that he has over 23,000 followers, but is only following approximately 40 other Twitterers (an improvement since the last time I checked, when he was following a mere 2 users: his Livestrong organization, and one other member of the Livestrong Executive Team).

Twitter isn’t about just talking about yourself, accepting every follower, and never engaging in actual dialogue. Like every other social networking tool, it’s about forming relationships, providing valuable content, listening and (like Chris said), giving more than taking.

There’s an unspoken code of ethics followed by well-respected Twitterers, and a strategy that can help you reach your customers and supporters on Twitter while not opening yourself up to criticism and in extreme cases, retaliation (ever heard of the Motrin Mommies ?). The power of Twitter is increasing daily — do you know how to harness it? Let Abraham & Harrison show you how.

In a recent blog post on Twisted Image’s Six Pixels of Separation, “When Customers Attack, They’re Not Doing It Online”, Mitch Joel looks at a recent Harris Interactive study that shows us that 7% of consumers who encountered some sort of difficulty while they were trying to conduct an online transaction then turned to a blog or a social network to vent. Now, I couldn’t find the study on the Harris site, but I’ll take Mitch’s word for it and assume it deals strictly with online transactions.

Then Mitch goes on to say

Admit it, you thought it would be higher.

No. I won’t admit to that. I’d have thought it would be lower.

He then states

All in all, it’s still a little surprising how low these numbers seem.

No, it’s not surprising to me.

Sometimes I think we forget that most people out there aren’t necessarily all that familiar with blogs. Or online forums. Sure, they may read a blog or two now and then. And they may turn to a product review site when applicable. But that doesn’t mean that they play a proactive roll in contributing to these platforms. Just as we so often see only a few people get involved in all sorts of membership organizations and groups, we will also see what I would assume to be a smaller percentage of contributing complainers. For most, it is not a priority. It’s not part of someone’s nature or usual routine.

First of all, someone has to know of a blog (or have one) from which they can either post an entry or write a comment. Or they have to make some sort of comment on a their profile page, be it on Facebook or MySpace or wherever. These take thought processes that go beyond quickly blowing off steam. It involves formulating an articulate series of thoughts, written in a coherent manner. It often takes a considerable amount of time. It can be a bother. It’s often not worth the effort. It’s much easier to vent to a friend, a coworker, a relative.

That’s why, according to the study, three-quarters of the people complained in person, and half complained to someone they know via the phone. Face to face and over the phone are quick easy established means of communication.

Why am I bringing this up? Because that 7% is actually high. Seven out of one hundred dissatisfied customers (or potential customers) are unhappy enough to take assertive action to coneptualize their thoughts and intentionally let others know. And not in a heat of the moment aspect. This could be somewhat alarming.

That’s because many organizations still don’t have their acts together online. User interface is a mess. Catalogs make no sense. Online forms that they must fill out can be burdensome. An online store may not remember who someone is. Sometimes it may not be the company’s fault. A credit card may not go through because of a technical glitch on the credit company’s end. And not everyone is really ecommerce savvy.

So, yes, it’s alarming. That’s because if a company processes 600,000 transactions a month and 2% of them create problems for their customers (not all of the problems necessarily sabotage the transaction), that means you’ve got 12,000 problems. Of that 7% complain in a blog or on a network. That’s 840 people. Per month. Getting my calculator out…that’s 10,800 online complaints per year. Yikes. That’s a lot.

Now Mitch does go on to say that

Putting it in writing and online gives the complaint a permanent digital legacy (one that has an ongoing conversation around it)…So, while the percentage may be significantly lower than telling someone in person, the effects of the online complaint probably have a much more dire long-term and overall negative brand effect.

That’s the key point. He’s spot on. The fact that 7% of unsatisfied customers are making that extra effort – which as we see could end up meaning thousands of people – can pose untold problems for today’s companies. Those proactive seven percenters are could easily be an alarming amount in both real numbers and in influence.

I’m gonna run with this concept of community for a while. I’ve touched on something that’s created a bit of a spark. In other words, I value the contributions people have made here and I want to keep the discussion going.

Chris Abraham, in a response to my previous post The Fallacy of Community, gives us a great synopsis of what they’re about. Jeremiah Owyang has another post that’s excellent, What Makes a Successful Marketing Campaign on Social Networks?

What got me thinking about this is an exchange I had with Marco Nunez of Aurelius Maximus and Richard Millington of Fever Bee. The discussion centered on the use and misuse of the word “community”.

I’m starting to think that many mistake great brands with enthusiastic users – users who may even evangelize – are brands with communities. Some manage to attain that status of course, but I’d say that the majority of them don’t. That’s because these brands often don’t have the users, the clients, the customers that CONNECT. What I’m offering is the thought that the relationship between community members, while not as vital a the relationship between member and brand, is still important. Or, if not the direct relationship, the experience one garners with the product brings out a intangible sense of belonging. That status could be based on enjoyment, on status, on a sense of mission.

So the users have to feel some sort of connection with one another. Marco mentioned Apple. Richard noted Harley Davidson. Chris brought up WordPress. I pointed out Red Sox Nation and Blog Her. These are brands with communities, quasi-organized entities whose members have developed a sense of camaraderie. The camaraderie is genuine. It isn’t necessarily corporate created and maintained.

I’ll add that entities such as marketer-created fan pages and groups on the likes of Facebook and MySpace are inherently not communities as well. They may be clever marketing tactics and they may eventually become communities. But a page on a website doesn’t within itself capture the essence of community. The members do.

Real communities are long-term, if not permanent entities that last beyond a three month marketing campaign on Facebook. Especially in this day of quickly created social media networking/marketing groups. That’s because quite often those groups last as long as a campaign lasts and hence, they aren’t communities.

I write all this because the idea of “brand” is one of the most important in marketing. There’s been debates for decades on what makes a great brand. Rob Frankel, one of the best minds in branding says “Branding is not about getting your prospects to choose you over your competition; it’s about getting your prospects to see you as the only solution to their problem.” Building a brand often takes an enormous amount of work, and many attempts fail. (Note to Richard: this supports your point about Guy Kawasaki and his work for Apple).

At this point we’re not even touching on brand evangelism. There are plenty of great brands out there that don’t cause their enthusiasts to evangelize. Someone may be dedicated to using Tide Detergent, but that doesn’t mean they’ll tell friends and coworkers…unless asked. As I mentioned in a previous post, Tropicana No Pulp Orange Juice is my “brand”, but I don’t evangelize about it. I just drink it.

But the concept of community goes beyond a great brand, it goes beyond getting evangelists. It means either organizing those evangelists – or helping them organize themselves. It means enabling the members to connect with both the brand and the community. It then means keeping true to the brand promise so as not to throw off the community members.

That’s what I see is behind an enduring, thriving connected brand community.

I’m going to go against the orthodoxy of my fellow social media practitioners. I’m going to commit heresy. I’m going upset the apple cart of the proverbial echo chamber.

The new 2008 version of Where the Hell is Matt YouTube video isn’t going to live up to it’s intended purpose. It will be something that many of us will talk about, blog about, pontificate about. Then it will go away.

Here’s the video if you haven’t watched it:

But that’s it.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the concept. I’m not against the concept. I, like many of you, find the idea of a this young American traveling throughout the world, visiting places, getting to know the people, the culture. And video taping himself, dancing, often with others, often many others. And often with children.There’s something touching about Matt Harding dancing in Jerusalem in one shot, on the West Bank in the next. There’s something inspirational seeing him dance with children in Zambia or Morocco or Bhutan.Regarding the “rules” of social media, it was done almost flawlessly. The company didn’t require him to wear a Stride shirt or hawk the gum or promote it in any way. All they got was a mention at the end in the credits. It was right in line with what I’ve been reading on all these blogs for the past two years. Subtle, not in your face. Makes us feel good.But that’s not enough. Not in today’s world. An ironic thought, considering the theme of the video. Here’s why.

It creates little brand awareness

One can watch the video several times and not have any idea that it’s a marketing effort by Stride Gum. In fact, I bet the vast majority of people that view it and/or forward it have no idea that there was a company behind this. The little credit line at the end isn’t enought. Sorry, social media folks, but that’s he way it is.

Gavin Heaton says:

There are 4 million people around the world willing to sit through almost 5 minutes of video. These people are receptive to the simple brand message offered by Stride Gum. That is 20 million minutes of brand engagement — opt-in.

Gavin, even if all 4 million (now it’s up to 6 million) viewed the entire clip, if they don’t know that this is in somehow related to Stride Gum, then it ain’t brand engagement. They’re simply watching a cool video on YouTube. Brand engagement means viewers must be aware that they are, in fact, engaging a brand. Ergo…

It has no brand connection

I’m betting the vast majority of people who watch this video are enamored by it. Hell, I am as well. Big time. Seeing all those people dance with Matt. I mean, CK’s in joyous tears over it. Yet she wrote a blog post about it…but didn’t even mention the sponsor’s name.

Dancing with some sort of small primates in Madagascar has no connection to chewing gum.

Neither does dancing amidst red crabs on Christmas Island.

I mean, if Matt wore one of those shirts from Stride – the one’s that everyone is trilled that he didn’t wear – in every, say, 12th location…so what? It would have helped the 6 million of us viewers understand what was behind this. The entire video itself it inspirational enough to overcome that. A little promotion here and there is not shoving it down anyone’s throat. In fact, Matt could have worn other T-shirts as well, saying things like “End Violence Now” or “Help Defeat Malaria”. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN COOL.

So, yeah. So what if an occasional Stride T-shirt shot pisses off 18 social media marketers who want and demand a false notion of purity.

If you don’t know that there’s a brand behind it, or even related to it, then…

It creates no brand affinity

We all love Matt now. Don’t we? We think he’s a fine young man. We want to grow up/be like/have a son like him some day.

We imagine what it must be like to be able to travel to Tonga and Iceland and the Cape of Good Hope. We want to have that freedom. We want to be able to experience the world.

The affinity here is with Matt. This fine young man.

What was the name of that sponsor?

Let’s take a look at the debate between Brian and Loic, point by point.

Point #1

Brian Solis: Understand You’re Not the Only Story in Town
Loic: Who cares about stories, you can get traction and users if you have a good product

Where do I start? First of all, Brian’s spot on in that many top executives in startups overvalue what the product or the service or whatever it is that they’re introducing. They don’t understand that the battleground for attention from key influencers and potential customers is filled with other players battling for attention as well. Sometimes it’s necessary to get someone to help craft a pathway through that battlefield, from someone one that understands which weapons and shields are needed. How to break through that clutter. Because on that very same battlefield are others looking for sweet victory as well. And that’s just the battle to get noticed.

Sometimes that’s having someone who can help craft and deliver a great story.

And, yes, sometimes, one of the best weapons is having established a blog and with that, a burgeoning community. Loic has done that and kudos to him for that. He is a great example of what he’s writing about.

Some of those competitors on the battlefield may not be direct competitors in business. No matter. They are still competing for mindshare of the audience a startup wants to reach.

CEOs need to understand this. They’ve worked their tails off for a significant period of time to produce something. That’s quite an accomplishment in itself. But many automatically think that whatever they’ve produce “sells itself” that it’s a “no-brainer” causing people to automatically understand why they should buy it. This is called hubris.

Hubris kills. For example, a trivia question. Guess who said this last fall:

“I’m in it for the long run. It’s not a very long run. It will be over by February 5.”*

History is filled with failed startups let by overconfident individuals that failed to realize they need some sort of marketing plan to get the word out, to position the product, to clarify key features and benefits. They decided to start companies and then implemented marketing as an afterthought. In other words, their companies have no stories.

While the atmosphere is much better today, I’ve seen decision makers that refuse to get this. It’s as if they seemingly believe that press rooms of major business publications had fax rooms where eager young interns hang out excitedly to retrieve their press releases and run to the editors with all of your important info. If you lack a story – and a decent product – it’s much more difficult to gain traction.

No, Loic, good stories are often needed. Stories can explain complex products. Stories can differentiate between competitors. Stories can offer insight that go beyond a series of sentences on a press release. Just as blog posts can. Blogging and trying to develop a community can work – but not really in time to help that start up. Unless they’re already a know quality like you. It also helps when you have a Web 2.0 type service that connects people such as Seesmic.

A second major point regarding Loic’s comments is that not all good products can get traction. Just as not every great guitarist gets that major record deal, just as not every great aspiring actress gets the big break, not every great product gets noticed. There are a bunch of factors that influence success. As Jim Kurkral commented on Loic’s post, “Even people with great products can still fail getting coverage.” Coverage in industry press, coverage in mainstream press, coverage in blogs. Nor will all creators of great bloggers be able to form online communities.

For that matter, not every product that meet with success is of top quality. Sometimes it’s luck. Previous reputation. Timing. Or a great story.

*Trivia answer: Hillary Clinton, (self)presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party in the U.S. Presidential race, describing how quickly she’ll win the nomination.

This morning, Norman Birnbach wrote an article wherein he suggests that I emphasize giving swag:

One of his tips is to “Give swag” — a point that Chris Abraham emphasized in a recent interview. The reason is that blogging is often a second career and there are few perks so swag can make a difference to get bloggers to respond.

He is not wrong, but I think I need to clarify my definition of “gift-giving.” I don’t emphasize giving away swag, necessarily — what I do emphasize is gifting — and giving ’til it hurts, “What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception.”

The following excerpt is from Be Generous, Not Stingy, When Engaging Bloggers (via Chris Abraham):

“Gifts don’t have to be free stuff — like books or iPods — gifts can be in the form of knowledge, intellectual property, insider access, or blogger exclusives; gifts can be informational, gifts can solve a community problem, or customer service issues.

What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception. You need to be willing to give the gift that the blogger wants and not the gift you are prepared or want to give.

What is not cool is half measures or crappy, throw-away gifts, the Internet version of key rings and a bowl of candy. Offering throttled, limited or restricted demos (without access to the full version when it is released); offering a single book chapter (without the whole book being an option); or granting “exclusive” access to something that is already released is just plain lame and will result in severe negative consequences.

It is pretty bad to not give a gift when you reach out to bloggers just because you feel entitled or represent a fancy client but it is worse to be stingy about the gift you do give. Make sure the gift is generous — give until it hurts.”

Andy Sernovitz’s blog’s name says it all, and definitely reflects my response to reading this: Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That!, especially in his post Instant Word of Mouth for Restaurants. From our experience doing blogger outreach and blogger gift-giving, this is on-the-money advice you should all consider (Via Chris Abraham — Because the Medium is the Message):

Give every lunch customer 6 desserts to take back to the office.

Give them one desert and they will eat it.

Give them 6 and they will to announce to everyone that they just ate at your restaurant and you gave them snacks to share.

Lesson: One free sample is interesting. Lots of samples turn customers into evangelists.

Firstly, while we at Abraham Harrison do online publicity and blogger outreach exclusively, this advice rings true. First, let me define what we mean by “free samples” and “gifts” in our context.

Gifts don’t have to be free stuff — like books or iPods — gifts can be in the form of knowledge, intellectual property, insider access, or blogger exclusives; gifts can be informational, gifts can solve a community problem, or customer service issues.

What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception. You need to be willing to give the gift that the blogger wants and not the gift you are prepared or want to give.

What is not cool is half measures or crappy, throw-away gifts, the Internet version of key rings and a bowl of candy. Offering throttled, limited or restricted demos (without access to the full version when it is released); offering a single book chapter (without the whole book being an option); or granting “exclusive” access to something that is already released is just plain lame and will result in severe negative consequences.

It is pretty bad to not give a gift when you reach out to bloggers just because you feel entitled or represent a fancy client but it is worse to be stingy about the gift you do give. Make sure the gift is generous — give until it hurts.

For example, with Survivor Corps, not only did we make lots of full-chapters available for download and sharing, but we are making paper hardcover copies available to anyone and everyone who wants one — and the offer is transferable.

While the wide selection of chapters may be generous, offering only a partial book would easily be considered to be stingy and cheap if we were not willing and able to drop-ship complete copies of the book at a moment’s notice without ever demanding a quid pro quo.

Most of the bloggers might very readily blog about I Will Not Be Broken were I to only send a smattering of chapters; even so, the risk associated with not making copies freely available would be intense and is not worth it.

The cost of a hundred books sent to important niche online influencers who have promised to blog about Survivor Corps, whether they ever do is negligible compared to being pegged as cheap and ungrateful.

Even a blogger who has an advertising rate sheet and who would never consider doing a review without being sponsored or paid are often willing to blog on behalf of our clients – when we get the right balance between influencer-targeting, message-modeling, gift-giving, blogger activation, and following-up.

It works because this is relationship and conversation marketing. There are real people behind those blogs who are sick and tired of not being treated like people and if you can get the mixture right, magic happens.

When we do blogger public relations (often called blogger relations or BR), blogger messaging, or online outreach, it is essential to do everything possible to make sure that the blogger’s free spirit is appreciated and also realize that the blogger is under zero responsibility to blog about your client at all; and, for the same reason that bloggers are pursued by us PR and marketing professionals — their influence, platform, and voice — bloggers are fully capable of turning against you and your client.

Luckily, bloggers are people, marketers are people, even PR professionals are people; therefore, even if something goes wrong during an aggressive messaging and PR compaign, which they often do if you’re being aggressive and passionate, a human touch and human engagement usually does the trick to smooth feathers, clear the air, and make things nice.

Even when clearing the air isn’t possible, it is important to be brave and a little shameless: when you’re in this sort of business, 1% or more of all recipients will have a cow and there is nothing you can do about it, no matter how much attention, love, adoration, and mea culpas you’re willing or able to invest.

For the Survivor Corps campaign, we have been pretty aggressive. Even before we have delivered our first copy of I Will Not Be Broken to a single blogger, we have received almost 50 blog mentions and posts. Even if we had suffered a couple negative posts as a tithe for the 50 positive mentions, I believe it would still have been worth it.

If you need more proof you can read the mentions that bloggers have written so far about Jerry White’s book, I Will Not Be Broken, collected well before any actual books arrived via Fedex to the bloggers’ door, you will see that Blogger PR is well worth all of the time and trouble required to make it work right.

Let me know if you have any questions about what we do or how we do it. I would be very happy to tell you more if you contact me at Abraham Harrison.

In my last post, I talked of the coming disruption of the three way relationship between marketer, agency, and media property. Essentially it centers on the idea that marketers (who are often behind themselves) are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of digital savvy of their agencies and are now turning to media properties for strategic ideas and creative capabiliites. And these media properties are making themselves all the more ready, willing, and able to carry out the needs and wishes of the marketers.

I believe that that’s happening. But there’s still a big problem with that model. Consistent brand messaging

On a micro-level, this new way of doing things makes perfect sense. Crafting an marketing campaign tailored to the offerings of an online property could maximize the effectiveness of the campaign itself. For that media property.

But last I looked, most advertisers don’t use all their spend on one property. They’ll pick many properties in many channels. They’ll test here and there. They’ll sometimes concentrate on branding, sometimes concentrate on direct , sometimes (and the web makes this more possible, concentrate on both.

If the marketer – the company that is the end client – has to tailor each of its marketing messages to that of the publisher, chaos could result.

Publishers will need to realize this and further expand their services, sort of becoming almost full service for their advertisers. But still, this still could run into brand confusion as each publisher will owe it to their paying client to create the most effective campaign for their specific property or properties, leaving potentially different and confusing brand messages across several media properties.

Wise agencies should see this as the window of opportunity and work with publishers before they even get clients to formulate the framework for effective marketing campaigns that can perform very effectively over a cross section of properties and platforms.

I decided to put together a list of reasons why I think many marketing agencies “don’t get” social media. Some are legitimate reasons, most aren’t. Feel free to add some of your own.

1- Elitism

The marketing industries – advertising, PR – are considered to be ‘cool’ or chic. These industries (including social media by the way) are filled with people who are self-consciously aware of this. For years I’ve been on online forums filled with ad people trashing the industry, talking about the lack of creative talent the whole time positioning themselves as being above it all.

Enter social media and its marketing aspects and these self-important types have something else to look down upon. If that attitude is prevelant in an agency, then it means you’ve got an agency that’s closed off to innovation.

2- Lack of Vision

An agency gets an RFP for a major client. They have meetings to brainstorm. How to position the brand. What creative they should use. Where they should make placements. Do we look to bring in a spokesperson? What strategies, what tactics?

And the whole time, social media didn’t enter their mindset.

That may be because they’re too rushed to give their response to the RFP and, because they haven’t had the time to learn much about social media. When it comes crunch time, it never occurs to them to do something with social media.

3- Lack of Interest

A couple of years ago I contacted a mid-size ad agency to see if they were going to incorporate any type of online marketing capabiliites. They had no interest in it. It was more than a lack of vision. It was simply put, a fundamental lack of interest of what was happening around them

4- Unable to figure out the revenue model

This is an underrated and compelling reason. I don’t believe as some doom sayers do that advertising is on its way out. But it is changing and some of these new business models involve little revenue. If you’ve to a lot of overhead and a project comes in that could mean little revenue, you’re going to be flummoxed and scared shitless of this.

5- Terrified of Technology

Often, people in agencies play the “he’s a tech guy” routine. Cordoning off those who do online stuff as a whole as tech people. And tech people usually aren’t marketing types. So by placing that label on it, ad types both partially remove internet marketers from the decision making pro and set up a situation where they don’t have to deal with technology – and the unknown.

6- They undervalue what it takes to establish a capability

Other times I’ve talked to agencies that it seems they want to hire someone “young” and not pay them much and “teach” them about online marketing, even though those that teach no little of what they speak. Developing an online capability is viewed as a cost, not an opportunity and the idea then is to go as cheaply as possible.

7- Methodologies are still being developed

Yes, this is true. The field is very new and, while there have been many successes, the constantly changing nature of social media – blogs, social networks, microblogs, online video, is often in a flux. Methodologies have to play catch up.

8- Social media is largely unproven

No, this is not heresy. It’s the truth, plain and simple. It’s an emerging field and, while social media usage is growing phenomenally, it’s growing in many different directions. Each time it grow, new lessons have to be applied to new strategies.

9- Too much hype from social media strategists

“Engage or die”. “The customer is in control of the brand”. Overblown statements by ‘visionaries’ that usually aren’t true and turn off traditional marketers. Statements like that seem to be directed at other social media strategists where it becomes part of the echo chamber. Not everyone had to ‘engage’ and not everyone will die if they fail to do so.

I just asked a question via Twitter. And I’ll repeat it here.

Question for social media types…many complain about interference from legal dept. when it comes to social media, especially with UGC…so, are there any conferences, events, seminars, etc. that bring the two groups together to understand one another more?

Not to toot my own horn, but that’s a good question. And it’s one that needs to be answered.

Marketers are essentially in charge of defining, promoting, enhancing, and protecting the brand. Lawyers are essentially in charge of protecting the entity, the business, and, yes, the brand.

I got to thinking about this because social media strategists often, as part of their strategy, enlist, encourage, or allow a brands users to play a role in the branding. I got to thinking of a recent story involving a group of car enthusiasts putting together a picture calendar showing off their cars. They calendars were to be sold on CafePress. But there was some sort of communication screw up and it was halted I believe. Some social media strategists mistakenly blamed the car company.

But then I thought…wait…if the legal department did have reservations in this situation, is that necessarily a bad thing? Think about it….

What if one of the participants of an unsolicited consumer generated media effort has let’s say a problem. Like a police record. I mean, let’s say he’s the type of guy who could get nailed by Chris Hansen of Nightline. You know, a pedophile.

Ridiculous? If you think so, you’re missing the point. The point is that legal department and marketing departments are going to have to understand one another and work together to both reasonably promote and protect the brand through social media. Cutting edge vs. overly cautious won’t do. Lawyer potentially nixing or at least getting in the way of potentially effective programs or frustrated marketing types angrily rolling their eyes at the stupidity and interference of the legal department will only serve to stifle the brand, or, potentially worse, leave it unprotected.

I don’t expect Hillary Clinton to take my advice. In fact, I fully expect her to keep forging ahead, putting out negative ads against Barack Obama and push for the delegates of the rule-breaking states of Florida and Michigan to be counted. I think the intensity of 35 years of waiting and wanting to run for president will take over and make her not see logic that she basically can’t win the nomination sans an Gary Hart-like Obama implosion. And there are no signs of that happening. I fully expect her to pull no punches and either she or her surrogates will attack Obama viciously, making him all the more vulnerable come November.

Disclosure: I worked back in 1992 for her husband’s presidential run. Worked in seven states. Something I’ll never forget. A blast. Makes me patriotic just thinking about it. Running around New Hampshire. I’m an independent though. And more of a centrist. Hillary (and Obama) are definitely to my left. McCain, whom I respect, is to my right.

Hillary turned me off with part of Hillarycare. On something so large an encompassing, you start off in the center or center-left. Not hard left. I remember a provision that would force organizations to enroll in insurance that would provide abortions services. Organizations such as the Catholic Church. When the Church objected to this provision, the answer came back: tough shit. As a Catholic who is slightly pro-choice, I was offended. There’s a stark difference between allowing an action (an abortion) and forcing an entity to pay for that action if it is completely against it’s principles. Thus, Hillary turned me off.

Two days ago, I read a post on TechPresident written by Liza Sabater. She pointed to a blog entry written by Erin Kotecki Vest, the Queen of Spain. ;)

The Queen, a former supporter of Hillary, makes a passioned plea for the Senator from New York to step down from the race. That’s because the Queen sees Hillary now as a polarizing figure, one that divides. She defends Hillary in the end, however, in that she sees this polarization largely as the result of the mental makeup of those that Hillary turns off:

If you firmly believe that there is still time for you to change the hearts and minds of those rude and stubborn Americans who are voting with their gut when they see “Hillary” on the ballot-then please, prove me wrong.

Ewww. Queen, you disappoint me. Rude and stubborn. When will some people learn? ;) One must be careful when considering the motives of others when they vote. But you are still my favorite Queen!

But I’m here not to trash Hillary, but to help her. To help her save her brand. In fact, I disagree with the Queen’s appeal. You see, I’m not a fan nor a hater of Hillary. But I can cetainly understand why she has legions of both. To me, she’s performed admirably as a Senator. She wasn’t an idealogue like many expected her to be. And she’s been given high marks by Republicans for her ability to work with them. Yes, she has the ability to reach across the aisle. We need that and she’s not been given a fair shake on that issue.

So, here goes. Hillary, accept the fact that you have almost no chance of winning the nomination. Accept the fact that a flurry of negative ads by you attacking Obama will only turn millions of Democrats off. Off of you personally. Accept the reality that if you fully try to have those delegates in Florida and Michigan count, you’ll tear apart the party and appear to be desperate and sinister in what would look like a fanatical desire to become president. Nixonian.

Instead, campaign your posterior off in Texas and Ohio. And let’s not forget Vermont and my native state of Rhode Island. Strictly in a positive manner. Don’t show that lack of graciousness as you did when you didn’t publicly acknowledge Obama’s continual sweeps. No bawdy negative attacks. Lay out your ideas passionately. Advance that agenda that you believe in. Find that voice. Give it your all. Make some of those “rude and stubborn” people think twice. And do it knowing the whole time that there’s a 3% chance that you’re going to be the nominee.

And when and if you lose these primaries, bow out graciously. Congratulate Barack Obama for his hard fought victory. Acknowledge that he has indeed touched something in many an American soul.

Right now, you look like the Bad Hillary. The power hungry, it’s all-about-me Hillary. The one that causes people to vote against you because of their gut.

By campaigning in a positive manner, you will be closing out your campaign and you’ll leave a positive taste in the mouths of Democrats anywhere. They’ll see your passion and ideas as you lay them out and perhaps lead legislatively in 2009. They’ll see you as you should be, the Good Hillary.

You see, Barack Obama, the likely nominee, while inspirational, is still vulnerable. Ask Texas state Rep. Kirk Watson. Barack Obama’s lack of national experience may prove to be too much for voters. I’m not saying that should be the case…I’m saying that it could be. And come November, we could see yet another Republican take the presidency.

All of which would make you the front runner for 2012.

That’s if you stay positive and show passion.

But I doubt you’ll do that. Because it’s my guess is that you’ll show the Bad Hillary that have turned so many off, causing them to become rude and stubborn. And it will be unfortunate if that ends up being your legacy.

Me too.

You want to get back to the show, the game, the newscast. See the bad guy get his ass nailed, the final two minutes of the tight game, or news on the latest scoop on the election cycle. The last thing you want to see is a series of presentations about pills that can make you pee better, a car that supposedly makes you cool, and a law firm that chases ambulances.

Me too.

But every once and a while, you’ll watch something that will catch your eye. It will make you laugh. Chuckle inside. You’ll be able to relate to it. Or you’ll be impressed because it’s impressive, not because the commercial is trying to pretend that it’s impressive with itself. Or you’ll think, shit, how did they do that?

Me too.

If that’s what happens, then that’s a commercial that will likely end up on Firebrand.

Firebrand is a client of ours. We’re proud to have them. They’re a new media outlet – literally. We’re proud to have them. They’re a new media outlet – literally. They’re on the web at ‘re on the web at http://www.firebrand.com and on the ION network on cable in 95 million homes. They seek out and get the world’s best commercials and play them, MTV style. From the States, Britain, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, India.

Now, let’s talk football. Let’s talk the Super Bowl. I could go off on a tangent and first talk about the great commercials, but I’m a lifelong fanatical New England Patriots fan so to me, this Sunday means football. I had to get that in.Allright, so lets’s talk about those about great commercials that the Super Bowl is known for. They get plenty of press beforehand. People do stop and watch them and they then talk about them the next day. They remember them. And they wish that all TV ads were that good.

We’ll, this week Firebrand will be celebrating ads of Super Bowls past all week long. Then on Monday, February 4th, they’ll be hosting “Firebrand Monday”, showing all the ads from the previous day’s Big Game. Viewers will be treated to the likes of Terry Tate, Office Linebacker and Carmen Electra

Here’s the lineup for the week.

Monday January 28th: “BIG TIME ATHLETES” in classic Big Game commercials

Tuesday January 29th: “BIG BUDGET PRODUCTIONS” for classic Big Game commercials

Wed January 30th: “CHICKS IN CHARGE” in classic Big Game commercials

Thursday January 31st: “BIG TIME CELEBRITIES” in classic Big Game commercials

Friday February 1st: “BIG TIME BRANDS” in classic Big Game commercials

Monday February 4th: IT’S FIREBRAND MONDAY, THE DAY AFTER THE BIG GAME – CELEBRATE THE HOLIEST DAY IN ADVERTISING WITH THE OFFICE LINEBACKER, CARMEN ELEKTRA AND CLASSIC BIG GAME COMMERCIALS!

Don Frischmann of Rubicon Consulting wrote this great article for AdAge.   A great read.

Nothing is Insignificant When It Comes to Brand Fulfillment

Two articles caught my eye earlier this week.

One was an AdAge article entitled “So Much for Engagement; Buys Are Still Based on Eyes”. It talked about a recent study by Advertiser Perceptions. Marketers and media buyers are looking to spend more and more dollars online. That’s because their first and foremost metric is reach – and that’s were people are going today. Online. But they see it more as a results oriented medium and are not doing it for engagement purposes as they don’t perceive that the online is good for engagement. This study was based on a survey of 2047 marketers and their media buyers.

The second one was a press release of a report put out by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council. It described how measurable ROI is becoming an increasingly important factor for marketers as they transform dollars online. Accountabilty is of prime importance as marketers look to measure the value of the programs they’ve created and the investments they’ve made. A result of this trend in 2007 was the relative high turnover of the agencies used – ad, web design, and PR – to carry out these programs. The reasons for the severing of relationships was often tied into “lack of innovation” and “no value-added thinking”. Hmm…

ROI is often hard to prove in social media marketing. While most forms of marketing involve some sort of relationship building, social media marketing is almost completely based upon it. It’s effectiveness is not measured in short term or fixed period metrics – the heart of ROI, but long-term difficult-to-measure attributes related to brand affinity and customer lifetime value. It’s all qualitative analysis and not quantitative analysis.

If it’s true that companies are going to be spending more and more online with a greater focus on sustaining measurable ROI, then it doesn’t bode well for social media types if we have a recession that many are predicting.

Francois Gossieaux, in Emergence Marketing, makes an excellent point in refuting the heavy emphasis on ROI in marketing, period.

“by measuring ROI on discreet processes (i.e., a specific lead generation campaign), which most companies who measure ROI do, companies are reducing marketing to a collection of simple linear processes, when in reality it is a complex multi-variable and non-linear system. So by oversimplifying marketing to make it measurable, many companies will actually break marketing more so than it already is.”

Marketers have often complained – justifiably so in my opinion – of how marketing is often devalued within their organization. It can be viewed as a cost as opposed to an investment. The push for ROI to justify spend means that they could choose strategies and tactics that 1) they are most familiar with and 2) are the most measurable.

An amazing paragraph from the AdAge article reads:

So which medium is the most engaging? Survey respondents said it’s print — yet ranked print lowest for delivering results. Online was ranked lowest for engagement but highest for results, while TV was ranked in the middle for both results and engagement.

Let’s check this out…marketers are increasing their online spend because that’s where the people are. Online is the most interactive medium and by extension of that should be the best for engagement but marketers (and probably ad agencies) see it as the worst. Marketers now see it as being the best for results (the “R” in ROI) along with perhaps reach. This would seemingly say that they don’t yet value the various aspects of social media marketing.

And not only that, but print, the medium that’s both losing its share of ad spend and is considered to be the worst for results is considered to be the best for engagement by these very same marketers. WTF?

It’s no secret that many traditional marketers and media buyers see the online arena through their traditionalist eyes. We see evidence of that all the time. Facebook’s Beacon and Social Ads are recent examples of that. Fake attempts to tie into word of mouth. Facebook is hot. Lots of eyeballs lets do it. We’ll be hip and it’s “pushing the envelope”. It’s likely traditional types are trying to please whomever they answer to.

Mack Collier pointed out how in a conversation we had from his post “Companies Remain in the Shadow of the Blogosphere”:

“but I think many companies and their PR firms still see most blogs as having an audience of about 4 people, all family members of the author. I think that’s why you are seeing them treat the highly-trafficked blogs, the Tech Crunchs, as media sources. But for 99% of blogs, they don’t care and don’t understand why they should.”

He’s right. And that’s unfortunate. But the odd thing is that the key decision makers – marketing executives – are likely in their eternal search for ROI are hurting their efforsts for long term success by view the online arena as ineffective for engagement. And then by either choosing traditional minded ad agencies (and then complaining that they lack innovation) or by stifling the creativity of less traditional and more innovative agencies (by an unnecessary focus on immediate ROI) they are shooting themselves in BOTH feet.

BtoB Online reports that 60.1% of B to B marketers will increase their marketing budgets next year. While that’s more than half, but still shows caution. It’s probable that many are unsure about the direction of the economy.

The good news is that 79.1 percent will be increasing their online budgets for 2008. Of all the methods of marketing, that stand as the highest. What we’re going to be witnessing is companies taking money out of traditional and going online. And we may see a lot of this happening.

Given now that we’re seeing consumer generated goods making their way successfully on the internet through the use of ad units, I’m going to guess that B to B will go that route as well. And a very healthy dose of search. Both should be essential.

I’m wondering though…will we see much devoted to social media. Educational/promo pieces on YouTube, increased blogger engagement, the use of podcasts for current customers. I’m sure this is being done, but more likely in the tech sector. I’m just wondering what other industry cultures will move in that direction.

The culture of participatory social media is having some surprisingly significant effects on both the way satisfied customers play a role in contributing to the marketing message development of products and services. And it is also playing an increasingly important role in defining the key touchpoints that customers use in the deciding factors one what to purchase. What makes this all the more noteworthy is that much of this is rooted in offline purchases. I’m putting this together from two recent studies…

As we all know, a satisfied customer can often be your most effective marketing vehicle. This has become all the more apparent as Bazaarevoice found in a survey they completed for Keller Fay, the word of mouth marketing agency based out of Atlanta. They found that 79% of reviewers write reviews to reward a company for the quality of the product or service they bought, with 87% of the reviews being positive in tone. Positive experiences mean greater customer involvement.

This means that satisfied customers see the idea of writing online reviews as an important part of their product/service experience. That’s backed up by the fact that in the same survey, 90% of the respondents write the reviews to help others make better buying decisions. Social media allows them to ‘share the love’ so to speak. The survey also points out that 70% see contributing to online reviews as a means to help a company improve what they offer. If this is the case, then we’ve got the initial stages of what many are calling a ‘community’.

The significance of that point shouldn’t be underestimated. Social media marketers are constantly talking about community. Sometimes I think they overdo it. That’s because I think they believe exists in the first place. It doesn’t. But customer reviews are one way in which they begin.

That becomes more important when you realize that comScore and the Kelsey Group found that reviews written by fellow consumers had a greater impact on the buying decisions of potential buyers than that of professional reviewers. And this no small point: 97% of review readers fine the reviews they read to be accurate. So, the quality of the reviews by fellow users is not compromised by a lack of ‘expertise’ in writing reviews. With more than three-quarters of review readers saying that their reading of someone else’s opinion on a product or service effected their decision to make a purchase, online review are now completely mainstream They are part of customer relations, message development, and community formulation. In short, an ecommerce strategy must include happy customers.

And just how can this affect the touchpoints as to the reasoning behind a purchase. comScore helps us out again by pointing out that people were willing to pay 20% ore for an Excellent, or 5-star rating, than they were a Very Good or Good 4-star rating. The survey doesn’t stipulate the percentage of people that feel this way however. But it does show that for (likely) price is not necessarily a huge factor when it comes to top quality. I say that because a 4-star rating is still very positive.

It should also be pointed out that offline purchases are really pushing this. Bazarrevoice found that of their respondents, 65% of them had, after purchasing offline, had gone back online to write a review. So it is not necessarily technology insiders. It’s broader than that.

The November 8^th edition of The Economist has an article that asks us “Will Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites transform advertising?”

In truth, the article is poorly written. It asks the wrong question, it’s lazily researched, and it provides little actual theory or empirical evidence to justify the premise they are trying to suppose. Perhaps the reason for this is that The Economist is a general news publication – one that I respect – and that the article was intended for a mainstream readership that’s likely mostly interested in reading about general trends and not deeper analysis. But nevertheless…

The question as to whether Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites will transform advertising is off. It I was asked this, I’d have to say no. Not really. (First of all, it’s more marketing than the subset of advertising.) To be sure, they’ll play a major role. But it isn’t the setting so much as it is the relationships that individuals will have with these very sites, with brands, and with one another. Facebook and MySpace may be great places to launch a brand or product page in an attempt to develop what many call a ‘community’. But then again, it may not. Perhaps a product oriented website equipped with social media tools will do.

The article rightfully calls this the fourth in a line of three proven online marketing categories. The first was banner and ad unit advertising. The second was online classifieds, and the third was search.

Yes, the advantage social networks have is that they’ve got millions of registered users, all of whom can tap into the social tools that the sites make available. And those tools include notification systems and the viral capabilities that are so essential to the expansion of a marketing message.

But the essence of all of this will be the interaction of the brand with individuals and the individuals with others of what the brand is hoping that it is creating…a burgeoning community. And that’s where it gets tough. That’s because many, if not most brands, don’t lend themselves to be naturally community building entities on social media sites.

It’s going to take real talent for brand managers, ad agencies, and social media strategist to create successful online marketing campaigns using the strategies we all talk and blog about. Too often I read the typical “you must engage your community’ talk, talk that presupposes that a community already exists. And no – a customer base, by itself, is not a community.

Take for instance a group on Facebook that I joined this morning as a result of reading the article. SpriteSips. Truth be told, I’m a Sprite lover. Always have been. But I joined not because of a lifelong affinity for the soft drink, but because I wanted to see how this online experiment will go. Seems I’m not alone…about half of the hundred or so ‘friends’ of SpriteSips were either from the Coca-Cola company, or from the interactive industry, or worked for Facebook. To be fair, SpriteSips has been up for only a little over a week (thus showing some laziness in research for the article – a more in-depth analysis of the MySpace effort for the movie “300”) and it’s too soon to make any judgments as to the effectiveness of the campaign. But Sprite really isn’t a lifestyle brand like Gatorade or Red Bull or Snapple. It’s going to be a challenge to get people to be continually pumped to come back to and “engage” with a soft drink that tastes good, but one that’s common enough that you can get at McDonalds, Burger King, and Subway. My guess is that it will be moderately successful and cost effective, but it isn’t something that will show how social media shines.

Tangerine Toad has a great series on this. He calls it “Your Brand is Not My Friend”, with the hypothesis being that I may like or even love your product, but don’t assume my affinity with it goes beyond simply using it for purpose that it’s made for.

To me, the article likely will make some social media marketing types all the more enthusiastic while making skeptics all the more skeptic.

I say all of this out of respect for all of us in the social media marketing field. As I mentioned, it’s going to take real talent to harness this new type of market and make it work. It’s going to take keen minds that know what makes different types of individuals out there want to be part of and then how to properly engage with them. It’s going to be a challenge – one that I love and I’m sure you do too.

Kelly Mooney has a great piece in AdAge, For Relevance, Think Three Way, in which she talks about the concept of ‘triangulation’ involving the brand, the customer, and the community and that all three need to embrace one another. She also blogs at MooneyThinks.

She’s quite right in that, for many of us, we’ve moved much of our media gathering experience online. Websites, blogs, social networks, forums are the areas that we discuss brands or experiences with brands or our impressions of brands.

Kelly calls on companies to shift from “B to C” over to “B to We”. An excellent example she gives is the “Pink” campaign from Victoria’s Secret that targeted young women. She writes

The recent star-studded PJ Party, promoted through Facebook, street teams and in-store, included flash-mob experiences via SMS announcements about free merchandise and a mobile photo application that enabled partygoers to see themselves on the stage’s LED screen, and it culminated in a free Fergie concert. The destination site featured a real-time mobile photo blog from the party and a dance-video-upload contest set to Fergie’s latest hit, where Pink fans voted on who should win a shopping spree and have her video featured on VSPink.com. Through triangulated communications, the brand is extended from offline to online, viral and mobile, and to an increasingly “qualified” audience.

I can’t disagree with this concept but, I’m often left wondering…how many brands can actually engage their customers? How many brands are able to cause that much passion? How many brands can develop or, for that matter, find an actual online community?

That’s a question that most of us haven’t asked yet.