CD Blog Reviews

News hit this Monday that Powered has acquired three social media agencies: crayon , Drillteam and StepChange . I just had a skype video conversation with Aaron Strout and Joseph Jaffe to learn more, here’s my take.  You can read crayon founder Joseph’s take and Aaron Strout the CMO of Powered and a quick mention in NYT . A Solution Set of Services Bolsters a Marketing Platform I’ve heard of crayon, and have many conversations and even podcasts with founder Joseph Jaffe, I’ve also spent time with the Powered executive team last year.  Stepchange is a 13 person team out of Portland focused on Facebook Apps and mobile, and Drillteam, from NY, has been around for 10 years and focuses on experitntial and advocacy marketing, such as connecting events to online like street teams, guerrilla, and ambassador programs. Powered isn’t just a community platform, I learned they have other marketing features that really intent to provide a suite of offerings. Natural Evolution Of A Growing Market: Consolidation happens in downturned markets. As the recession starts to show signs of it lifting, now’s a great time for companies to come together and create a greater value.  We saw this type of acquisition behavior from agencies during the first boom, and we should expect similar patterns here. Acquisition provides key services software platforms can’t fill. It makes sense for Powered platform to partner up with a service(s) teams that have already been successful for some time, this improves the time to market to deployment.  In addition to coming with a book of business, they can quickly deploy the Powered platform, expanding the software footprint.  Joseph Jaffe has strong thought leadership, an existing marketing brand, and reach needed to the group. Yet, brings risk for Powered and new partners. First of all, there are some big names coming together,  the real stress will be can these cultures, and their strong willed leaders, be able to jive together.  Secondly, it’ll be interseting to see if Crayon and services teams forces stragies on their clients that involve the Powered platform.  I asked if there are any layoffs coming from consolidation, they haven’t made any plans, but when you have 4 companies coming together expect redundancy. Impacts To Customers, Partners and Competitors: Social Agencies should rekindle and bolster relationships . This impacts other social agencies like Stage 2, Social Media Today, AdHoc, Ant’s Eye View, ForumOne, Community Roundtable, Shift Communications, Dachis, FutureWorks who may be at medium and small tier, they should quickly partner up with other firms to increase their value. Customers of crayon, Drillteam, and Stepchange should request agnostic recommendations. Any client of these three agencies should make sure that the strategy they are being offered includes other vendors and platforms –not just the Powered platform and Facebook platform.  Remember, first find out where your customers are online before choosing the tools to use. This is competition for larger agencies –yet savvy agencies will partner. This is a threat to large agencies like Organic, Razorfish, Ogilvy, and Edelman.  Yet the smart agencies won’t get defensive, they should partner with this team, and figure out what offerings they can offer that they don’t have in their portfolio. Congrats to the Powered, crayon, Drilldteam and Stepchange team for this merger, I’m excited to see the industry emerge from small disparate startups to a larger entity going forward.

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Quicktake: Powered, A Social Marketing Suite, Acquires Crayon and Social Media Agencies

Web Marketing Services: Strategy, Management, Marketing, Consulting, Design, Development, Content Creation, Content Marketing, Search and Social Media Marketing.

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RevenFlo | Web Marketing Services » Blog Archive » Seminar on …

The final analysis is it is not adwords or media buys which make you cash its traffic and I absolutely kick ass at getting traffic from search engines and the social web. The reason i kick ass is … Continue reading Google Adwords …

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Discover the Google Adwords Account Slap Remedy That Is Going to …

Web Strategy Survey View more presentations from Jeremiah Owyang . Above: See the details of the survey results, due to heavy data, it’s best when put into ‘full screen’ mode, the fourth icon on bottom. To me, this blog belongs as much to the community in which I serve as it does to me, as such, it’s important to find out who the readers are and what they want, to learn about previous efforts,  see 2008’s results . The goals of this survey are simple 1) Find out who the readers are, 2) Find out if they are they influenced by this blog, and how, 3) How this blog can improve year-over year. With a sample size of nearly 200 respondents, some of the key findings from this survey were: Overall, Readers Were Satisfied: Overall, respondents were pleased with the blog, and 47% rated it a “10/10″ in recommending it to others when asked “would you recommend this blog to a friend or colleague”, and 54% read more than half the posts, and over one-third shares it monthly with others (slides 3, 4, 5) Many are Buyers at Corporate: 59% of respondents said they are buyers,  28% of respondents have budgets $100k-$1 million (although one-fifth do not hold budget), and over a quarter work at enterprise class companies with over half of respondents in the United States (slides 10, 14, 18, 19). Some are Influenced By Blog: Over one-third of respondents said this blog strongly informs their actions at work, but it was nearly split between influence in their buying process, with 40% agreeing, and 39% disagreeing.  (slide 6).  Read more from Edelman’s Analyst Relations specialist, Jonny Bentwood on his take of this data . Sophistication of Social and Mobile at Work Varies: 39% of respondents said their company was intermediate when it came to social strategy, and 43% said their novice when it comes to mobile strategy. (slide 20, 21) Identified Many Areas for This Blog to Improve: There was a large request for adding more case studies, and interviews with thought leaders in the space, and a variety of comments in the open-ended section that I’m all taking to heart. (slide 8, and qualitative answers) You can read the qualitative answers on a separate page , in case you want to understand why they read this blog, and what they want to see improved. A few notes on this survey.  I’m not sure this is truly representative of all readers, it’s likely those that are more engaged, and are willing to spend time filling out the survey.  While some research firms take data samples from smaller numbers, this is only 195 of respondents, although there are far more readers than that. If you want to influence the readers of this blog, it’s simple.  Be part of the ongoing conversation (not be pitchy) by leaving comments and demonstrating your knowledge and expertise.  Also, you can schedule a briefing with me, but I’ll have to admit up front, it’s been hard getting on my cal as we just launched this new company.  I’m figuring out ways to make briefings easier, such as blocking out Friday mornings, using web based forms to collect more information up front. Thanks to the folks who took the time to answer the 20 question survey, I read every response, and am constantly trying to improve this blog. Here’s to making this blog even better in 2010!

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Who Reads This Blog? Find out with 2009 Web Strategy Survey Results

Here’s my latest column in Forbes, the CMO Network , which I’ve also posted here.  I’m leaning on naming this CMO focused column “The Connected Customer”, which appears to be a theme, what would you name it? A Year In Review: 2009 Social Marketing Trends The connected customer leaves brands in the dust. As we close out the year, it’s important to look back at what happened in social marketing in order to plan for the future. There were four key trends in 2009 that CMOs should reflect on, starting at the macro level then shifting down to micro real-time updates. They are: The Recession Spurred Consumers to Adopt Social Technologies. Humans are social creatures and, as a result, they tend to band together in hard times. During financial crises, this same behavior is evident: People connect to one other, share, learn, and communicate. What’s more, with unemployment at record highs, those with internet access have more time–and need–to connect with others. It’s evident through Facebook’s 350 million global users . For brands, it’s interesting to note a study by Razorfish, which indicates that 52% of consumers have blogged about a brand’s product or experience. Don’t expect this to change as the recession lifts, as it is the preferred method of communication for young people. Some Brands Followed Suit With Social Marketing. Marketing budgets are pinched during tough times. Recent data from eMarketer indicates that companies are slashing print budgets by 37% and TV by 21% as a response to the recessio n. Yet marketers know that tough times also spur innovation, as they experiment with mediums such as social marketing. Social marketing promises lower costs and bigger returns. In fact, word-of-mouth campaigns encourage consumers to do the marketing on behalf of the brand themselves. Yet despite the opportunity, research conducted by the Altimeter Group (where I’m a partner) and Wetpaint found that while brands like Starbucks, Dell, eBay, and Google interact with their customers, most brands do not. Still, we’re seeing a noticeable increase in social marketing budgets, as brands find ways to innovative marketing. Social Networks Share Data, Spreading Social Influence. A key trend across the technology vendor space in 2009 is that social networks are connecting with other systems. Much like how Apple’s iPhone developer program enables third parties to build and create new applications, many social networks are doing the same. Take for example, LinkedIn, a business network that recently began allowing third party sites to connect with the LinkedIn platform to share data. Similarly, Facebook Connect allows users to log into third party sites using their Facebook ID. There have been over 80,000 connections since this time last year. So what does this data availability mean? It means that consumers’ social experience will spread from site to site, and that wherever they go online or off, they can access their friends’ opinions, experiences, and recommendations in real time. Consumers Move Faster By Sharing Real-Time Data . In August, 2009, blogger Heather Armstrong, who boasts over a million followers on Twitter was miffed about a shabby customer experience and tweeted about it . Although the company, Whirlpool, responded within hours, the damage had been done–Armstrong’s real-time feedback about her company experience spread quickly through her network and beyond. This spread of customer experiences in real time is a trend, in fact, status updates are a feature found not just in Twitter but in many social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. Recently, Twitter signed a deal to allow Microsoft’s Bing and Google access its real-time data, displaying real-time tweets which appear along side traditional search results. So what is the impact of this increase in real-time data? It means that consumers can instantly give feedback about their product experiences and tell their friends. For brands, it means they have to move faster to keep up with consumers who are sharing. Takeaway: This year, consumers are more connected, and moving faster than brands. It’s essential for senior marketers to use the past to plan for the future, and these four trends indicate that people are connecting and sharing with each other–at an increased pace. Brands need to develop a strategy and a plan to respond–not simply react–to the latest technology. In our next piece, we will discuss the key trends to watch in 2010 to help with strategy planning. Thanks to Christine Tran on the Altimeter Research team for her assistance if finding data references.

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Forbes: A Year In Review: 2009 Social Marketing Trends

The web is quickly moving to real-time, people share the information about what they’re doing while their doing it. Yet the next step beyond real time, is future-looking data, which is called the Intention Web (get up to speed by reading this post) . In an effort to map out this trend in 2010, let’s list out the vendors, companies, and beyond that will facilitate this type of forward looking data. There are countless opportunities for people to connect with others with the same goals, or for companies that want to serve them as new technologies like Social CRM evolve and develop. Scope: These Intention websites facilitate a person to publish their future goals in the context of their community, or sometimes even in public. For example, an unshared CAL isn’t a qualifier. To The Future! A List of Intention Enabled Websites 43 Things : This “wish list” , they suggest that you make a list on 43 Things and see what changes happen in your life. They encourage you to connect with others with the same goals. Facebook Events : Facebook allows members to RSVP for future events, publish their own events, or see what friends are doing. Meetup : Encourages groups to organize events, plan events, and connect with others. Plancast : Is a social network that allows members to publish their future plans. It allows people to see who is going to other future goals, and to publish to Facebook, and Twitter. Upcoming : This Yahoo owned property allows people to find, publish, and share future events. Leave a comment if you know of other technologies that meet this critia

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To The Future! A List of Intention Enabled Websites

Marketing Magazine name Industry Head of Social Media for Australia. What is an Industry? What is an Influencer? What commodity does social media create, to make an industry? Kate Kendall ( @KateKendall ) from Marketing Magazine approached me a little while ago to write a piece on the “state of the social media industry”. I hunkered down and tried to figure out what I’ve seen change since returning to Australia in 2005 and it’s now been published in the 2010 Media Survival Guide. click for full size The Media Survival Guide has a bunch of sections with pieces from Industry Head, a panel, case study, future directions etc in Out of Home, Search, Direct Marketing, Web, Print, TV Radio, Mobile, Events/Experiential and Social Media. I am in the Social Media section along with : Paul Borrud, regional VP of sales for Facebook, Australia Jolaine Boyd, group marketing manager, Telstra @bigpondteam Simon T Small , digital strategist, Visual Jazz @SimonTSmall Venessa Paech, Community manager, Lonely Planet @venessapaech Jye Smith , social media strategist, Switched On Media @jyesmith Katie Chatfield, creative strategist, Jack Morton Worldwide @katiechatfield Stephen Collins, acidlabs @trib Richard Binhammer, senior manager, Dell Gavin Heaton, servant of chaos @servantofchaos Social Media Industry An industry is “the people or companies engaged in a particular kind of commercial enterprise” ( Google it ). I’m not sure that’s narrow enough. If everyone makes Girl Guide cookies for one day’s fundraising, is there a Girl Guide cookie industry? And social media – true social media, not agencies using our channels to continue broadcasting – has more in common with Girl Guide cookie fundraisers than it does with say, mining or manufacture.  Caring but not committed, KPI (Key Performance Indicators) often unclear therefore so are ROI (Return on Investment). Unless there is an industry for making people like you – Movie Making or Cosmetics maybe? Mashable (Ben Parr) solves the question of “Is Social Media an Industry” for us. Well, the crowd does… Industry Head The magazine has articles from “Industry Heads”: Out of Home : Helen Willoughby, CEO, Outdoor Media Association (OMA), Search : Julian Persaud: director of online, Google Australia Direct Marketing : Rob Edwards, CEO of the Australian Direct Marketing Association, (ADMA) Web : Paul Fisher, CEO, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Print : Joe Talcott, group director of marketing and audience development, News Limited TV/Radio : Harold Mitchell, AO, executive chairman, Mitchell Communication Group Mobile , Rohit Dadwal, managing director, Mobile Marketing Association, Asia Pacific Events/Experiential : Tracy Jones, national president, Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) Social Medi a: Laurel Papworth, social network strategist aka @SilkCharm aka ME! The title “Industry Head” set me thinking – what is an industry? And what does the Head of an Industry look like? Does it need a “body” – organised mediation? Especially with social media where there are none of the usual regulatory, lobbying, agency requirements? Industry Head, Social Media What makes a head of industry? Is it a job title within a major corporation, irrespective of which human being is filling that job? Is it the head of a body, the person who has been given the voice by the masses (voted in) to speak on their behalf? Is it a personality – Harold Mitchell probably fulfills all three criteria but definitely “personality”.  This reminds me of what I teach about influence : loners with style – the guy that shows up to black tie in an “original” outfit. Unique selling point is being truly unique. Vampires. out there – full of original ideas, laughed at, eventually respected as an influencer. Inventor or Futurist. position of unique knowledge – has studied hard, lots and lots of experience.  knows stuff. Professor or Scientist. have external resources: can be a complete moron but has the accoutrements of wealth. Entourage. have the most friends: barely known by any of them, but the largest database, crowd support. Famous for being Famous. famous within their circle: small number of friends but well regarded by all. Recognition connecting up the social ladder : spends most time connecting to important people, not lots of people. Knows people. connects out to other circles: distributor of information, on the outer circle but doing interesting things. Explorer. So social network influence is either courted with the crowd, or with peers or up the social ladder. Or it is conferred on those who don’t necessarily seek it – because of their position in society, original thinking, or unique knowledge. There’s probably a bunch of others but that’s all I can think of right now – how about you? In an “industry” where each voice is striving to be unique with content and/or build an audience of followers, I suggest that we have actually created a multi-headed Hydra monster. I do think that some will try to set up peak bodies or industry organisations to “own” social media. Cliques of agencies that gather to share war stories or…  concerned citizens that want to regulate “free speech”. Maybe one to protect user generated content from agencies and media organisations, though nobody liked the name I gave it ( EEI EEI Org ). What say you – is social media an Industry? with a Head? needs a Body? Australia: Industry Head, Social Media is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy Technorati Tags: ADMA , Australia , Dell , Facebook , Harold Mitchell , Helen Willoughby , IAB , influence , Julian Persaud , laurel papworth , Mitchell Communicatons Group , mobile , OMA , Paul Borrud , Paul Fisher , PRIA , Richard Binhammer , Rob Edwards , Rohit Dadwal , social media , Tracy Jones Tags: ADMA , Australia , Australia , Dell , Facebook , Harold Mitchell , Helen Willoughby , IAB , influence , Influencers , Julian Persaud , laurel papworth , Marketing , Mitchell Communicatons Group , mobile , OMA , Online Communities , Paul Borrud , Paul Fisher , PRIA , Richard Binhammer , Rob Edwards , Rohit Dadwal , social media , social media , social networks , Tracy Jones Related posts Twitter: Reputation Management in Social Networks (18) Video 3.0 – Social Video (2) Three things about Twitter (5) Speaking (1) Social Media: Facebook blogs marketing course (2)

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Australia: Industry Head, Social Media