Smart Bloggers - Servant of Chaos

The Land of the Free

We owe a lot to Chris Anderson. Not only did his Long Tail give us a way to conceptualise the business models around aggregated, niche, online markets, he continues to challenge the way that we think about business in an always-connected world. Here he tells us why free is the future of business.

David Armano has taken the visual approach (of course), mapping out the four types of free that Chris is talking about:

Free 1: Get one item free, buy another (as popularised by King Gillette — yes, of the razors — give away the handle but charge for the razor blades)
Free 2: Free item paid for by your attention (ie advertising)
Free 3: The so-called "freemium" — where the free "version" of a product or experience is cut down in features, prompting the purchase of the "feature rich" product or experience (ie shareware software)
Free 4: The "Gift Economy" — where something is given away in exchange for a non-monetary (or indirect) reward.

It is this final "free" that Christina (CK) Kerley has been talking about (as the share economy). It is the fundamental transformative move AWAY from price as a measurement to VALUE as an indicator or worth. Of course, this places the individual at the centre of the method of evaluation and ranking … for the value of a product or experience will depend on a combination of its RELEVANCE to a consumer and their NEED state. This alone will require us to re-think our approach to the business-to-consumer relationship. Moreover, it will transform how we imagine a business-to-business environment.

But the question for marketers of all shapes and sizes is not, "What will FREE cost us"? — but "What value can I exchange?".

Video via Amanda Mooney @ American Shelf Life.

The Ryder Cup of Word of Mouth, Buzz and Viral

Blogging, Smart Bloggers, Social Media, Weblogs

The Ryder Cup is a fascinating contest. Based on prestige rather than prize money, it pits the best golfers in the USA against the best from other parts of the world. And while there was a time some years ago when I could not see the value in "hitting a ball and walking after it", I have now developed a much greater appreciation and interest in golf — both as a player and an observer. Interestingly, there are quite a few parallels between golf and social media:

Participation — from the outside looking in, golf can appear boring. When you start to participate you realise there is much more to it than meets the eye.
Frustration — like golf, not everything you "try" in social media works. Often your best efforts will still end up "in the pond".
Competition — while it is easy to get caught up in all different rankings and measurements, like social media, you only ever play golf against yourself. The quality of your work comes down to the nuance, effort and creativity you inject into it — and the results follow accordingly.

In the spirit of the Ryder Cup, Sean Moffitt has compiled a list of what he considers to be the top 36 US blogs on word of mouth, viral, buzz, influence and the engaging brand. Against this he lists 36 international blogs. I am particularly pleased to be listed after reading Sean’s reasoning:

Unlike some of the social media- and tech dedicated marketing and media bloggers, these broad-minded bloggers and company heads (below) have distinguished themselves by helping visitors understand how ideas spread, online and offline, through a range of different strategies and tactics and each recognizes the importance of having brands getting noticed, talked about and advocated in a 2.0 world.

In my opinion, they are much closer to explaining the purpose and benefits of a range of new media, web 2.0, co-creation, social networks and other web, cultural and social phenomenon.

And in the best interest of co-creation, Sean has left a number of open slots on each team. So tell me, who would you include? Here is the list so far:

The USA Team

1. Jackie Huba/Ben McConnell – Church of the Customer (Austin, Texas)
2. Andy Sernovitz – Damn! I Wish I Thought of That! (Chicago, Illinois)
3. Pete Blackshaw – CGM (Cincinnati, Ohio)
4. Jim Nail – Influence 2.0 (Boston, Massachusetts)
5. Idil Cakim – dot WOM (New York, New York)
6. Jeremiah Owyang – Web Strategist (San Francisco, Calfornia)
7. Rohit Bhargava – Influential Marketing (Washington, D.C.)
8. Owen Mack – CoBrandIt (Boston, Massechussetts)
9. Walter Karl – WOM Study (Boston, Massachusetts)
10. Fred Reichheld – Net Promoter – (Boston, Massachusetts)
11. Max Kalehoff – Attention Max (New York, New York)
12. Olivier Blanchard – The Brand Builder (Greenville, South Carolina)
13. Charlene Li – Charlene Li (San Francisco, California)
14. Sam Decker – Bazaar Blog and Decker Marketing (Austin, Texas)
15. Joseph Jaffe – Jaffe Juice (New York, New York)
16. John Moore – Brand Autopsy (Austin, Texas)
17. Peter Kim – Being Peter Kim (Austin, Texas)
18. Mack Collier – The Viral Garden (Florence, Alabama)
19. Spike Jones – Brains on Fire (Greenville, South Carolina)
20. Ron McDaniel – Buzzoodle (Cleveland, Ohio)
21.John Jantsch – Duct Tape Marketing (Kansas City, Missouri)
22. Kim Proctor – How to Create Powerful Customer Experiences (Los Angeles, California)
23. Rob Walker – Murketing (Savannah, Georgia)
24. Lois Kelly – Foghound (Providence, Rhode Island)
25. Ann Handley – MarketingProfs (Boston, Massachusetts)
26. Shiv Singh – Going Social Now (New York, New York)
27. Laurent Flores – Customer Listening Blog (New York, New York)
28. Tom Asacker – A Clear Eye (Manchester, New Hampshire)
29. Francois Gossieaux – Emergence Marketing (Boston, Massachusetts)
30. Geoff Livingston – The Buzz Bin (Washington, B.C.)
31. Dave Balter – BzzAgent (Boston, Massachussetts)
32. John Bell – Digital Influence Mapping Project (Washington, D.C.)
33. Todd Tweedy – Word Spreads Quickly (Charlottesville, Virginia)
34. Marta Kagan – the Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius (Boston, Massachusetts)
35. Greg Stielstra – Pyromarketing (Nashville, Tennessee)
36. Willow Baum Lundgren – Small Planet (Kansas City, Missouri)
37. Amber Naslund – The Brand Box (Chicago, Illinois)
38. Greg Verdino – GregVerdino.com (New York, New York)
39. Paul Chaney – Conversational Media Marketing (Lafayette, Louisiana)
40. August Ray – Experience – The Blog (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
41-42??? Your Turn

The International Team

1. Frederick Herrman – Netszkobold (Germany)
2. Emmanuel Vivier – Culture-Buzz (Luxembourg)
3. Sean Moffitt – Buzz Canuck (Canada)
4. Rachel Clarke – Behind the Buzz (England)
5. Gavin Heaton – Servant of Chaos (Australia)
6. Sam Flemming – SeeISee.com (China)
7. Ian McKee – The Power of Influence (Singapore)
8. Mirko Pollera/Alex Giordano – Ninja Marketing (Italy)
9. Russell Davies – Russell Davies (England)
10. Simon McDermott – Attentio (Belgium)
11. Andy Lark – Andy Lark (New Zealand)
12. Max Lenderman – Experience the Message (Canada)
13. Paul Marsden – Viral Culture (England)
14. Laurent Valembert – Marketing Alternatif (France)
15. Mike Rowe – 1000 heads (UK)
16. Par Thunstrom – Buzzador (Sweden)
17. CLeber Martins – Blog de Guerrilha (Brazil)
18 Willem Sodderland – Buzzer (Netherlands)
19. Jean Nasr – Alt-Buzz (France)
20. Igor Beuker – Viral Tracker (Netherlands)
21. Grant McCracken – This Blog Sits At...(Canada)
22. Mitch Joel – Six Pixels of Separation (Canada)
23. Justin Kirby – DMC (U.K.)
24. Sebastian Provencher – Praized (Canada)
25. Alan Moore/Tomi Ahonen – Communities Dominate Brands (England/Hong Kong)
26. Anna Farmery – The Engaging Brand (UK)
27. Neil Perkin – Only Dead Fish (UK)
28. Johnnie Moore – Johnny Moore’s Werblog (UK)
29. Joanna Kocieba – BuzzReporter (Poland)
30. Hjortur Smarason – Marketing Safari (Iceland)
31. Krishna De – Biz Growth News (Ireland)
32. Fred Cavazza – FredCavazza.net (France)
33. Bart van Der Aa – Icemedia (Netherlands)
34. Gianluca Artesano – Frozen Frogs (Italy)
35. Ivo Laurin – Outbreak (Czech)
36. Chris Abraham – Chris Abraham (Germany)
37. Mark Earls – Herd (U.K.)
38. David Eicher – Brainwash (Germany)
39. Pepe Wietholz – Buzz People(Germany)
40 Christian Wilfer/Carolina Schulz – Viralmarketing.de (Germany)
41. Dean Hunt – DeanHunt.com – (UK)
41-42??? Your Turn

The Effectiveness of Digital Branding

Authenticity, Digital Strategy, Facts & Figures, Future of Your Brand, Smart Bloggers

Chris Schaumann has put together this excellent presentation on digital branding, with a particular focus on the Asia region. There are some great statistics peppered throughout, including the fact that there is only an average 5% spend on Internet advertising in Asia Pacific (Australia maxing out at 12.2%). But when you consider that 65% of all marketing spend in 2007 had NO effect on consumers and that 86% of consumers don’t believe what brands say about THEMSELVES, then it starts to make sense.

Clearly, brands can no longer EFFECTIVELY represent themselves. And with 78% of consumers believing what "other consumers" say about brands, the rise of consumer generated content/comment/analysis will have an impact on the Future of Your Brand. I particularly like the way that Chris breaks down the "new marketing model" into:

Transactional marketing
Relationship marketing
Experiential marketing

But I would add a fourth element — conversational marketing. This is the marketing that is done ON YOUR BEHALF by consumers to other consumers. And while it is much less controllable, it is certainly "authentic". Will it bring the love back? Only time will tell.

Tip of the hat to Geert Desager.

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A Shakeup in the Top 25 Marketing and Social Media Blogs

Measurement, Smart Bloggers, Social Media

Last week, Mack Collier explained that he was switching his measurement for the Top 25 Marketing and Social Media blogs away from Technorati to Feedburner subscriber numbers. This has seen a big change in the blogs that make up the Top 25 — I am guessing this is mostly to do with the fact that many blogs don’t publish their subscriber numbers (or perhaps don’t even use Feedburner).

Now, I don’t actually publish my subscriber numbers — but it has not been a hard and fast decision. What do you think? Should I? What does it mean to you? Does a subscriber count influence your decision to read/subscribe? Does it influence the way you feel about a blog?

For the record, one of the reasons for not publishing is that I had setup three feeds very early on. I was able to consolidate down to two, and now have both running about neck and neck (about 600 each). And while I have tried to consolidate the feeds, I can’t quite get it to work. All new subscribers, please use this feed.

Mack’s list for week 120 is as follows. Congratulations to all on it!

1 – Duct Tape Marketing – 220,000 (LW – 6)
2 – Church of the Customer – 209,000 (LW – 8)
3 – CopyBlogger – 42,780 (LW – 2)
4 – Search Engine Guide – 12,173 (LW – 4)
5 – Chris Brogan – 8,319 (LW – 3)
6 – Influential Marketing – 6,985 (+12)(LW – 7)
7 – Logic + Emotion – 3,564 (LW – 5)
8 – Converstations – 3,219 (LW – 20)
9 – Drew’s Marketing Minute – 3,203 (LW – 15)
10 – The Viral Garden – 3,063 (LW – 25)
11 – Experience Curve – 2,775 (LW – UR)
12 – Conversation Agent – 2,713 (LW – 12)
13 – Techipedia – 2,300 (LW – 13)
14 – The Social Media Marketing Blog – 2,079 (LW – 19)
15 – Emergence Marketing – 1,829 (LW – UR)
16 – The Social Customer Manifesto – 1,672 (LW – UR)
17 – Techno Marketer – 1,367 (LW – 23)
18 – Social Media Explorer – 1,332 (LW – 18)
19 – Movie Marketing Madness – 1,231 (LW – UR)
20 – Daily Fix – 1,111 (LW – 10)
21 – Customers Rock! – 849 (LW – UR)
22 – Shotgun Marketing – 721 (LW – UR)
23 – Biz Solutions Plus – 541 (LW – UR)
24 – Resonance Partnership Blog – 301 (LW – UR)
25 – MediaPhyter – 116 (LW – UR)

The Curse of Weblebrity

Smart Bloggers

You know him. You have seen him across the crowded conference room floor. He looks just like he does online, except perhaps, more "real". Slightly older. Shorter. Younger than you expected. Taller. His voice is familiar, comfortable. After all, you have heard it a thousand times. And his smile, well, it’s just like the photo. But his laugh surprises.

As you walk across the room, you wonder how his family are settling back into city life after the recent holiday away … whether the goldfish survived … if the pitch for new work succeeded … together with a thousand other thoughts. After all, there is much that you have shared.

You move closer, smiling, nodding, "nice to see you". And then it hits. A blank. "Your name?". You fumble around and manage to jam the two words of your name together in an intelligible jumble.

If this sounds familiar, then you have been hit with the curse of the weblebrity. This happens when you read someone’s blog and their Twitter stream — and perhaps a whole series of other "lifestreams" that are available via Flickr, FriendFeed, Plaxo, Plurk or Pownce — and become invested in their life, feeling like there is some connection between you.

But sometimes this connection is not reciprocated. The reader, or follower, does not necessarily comment, or comment regularly. They do not converse via Twitter or other conversational platform. This makes it difficult to connect reader with author, person with person. How can this be changed?

For readers — take some time to comment on your favourite blogs. Even a line or two can get you started. Connect professionally through LinkedIn. Check out Twitter and join the conversation.

But maybe you, yourself are a weblebrity. David Armano has a tongue-in-cheek checklist that helps you determine your weblebrity status. Point 1 is the wearing of a signature piece of clothing. In this photo above, with Drew McLellan, I am wearing David’s famous hat. I think that is about as close as I am going to get 😉

Does Social Media Scale?

Branding, Old Media, Smart Bloggers, Social Media, Strategy

Over the past week or so there have been a series of ideas coming together in my mind. I had been struggling to pull them together into a coherent framework until I saw this post by Peter Kim. He asks some difficult questions around the benefit of social media, but goes further — suggesting that social media does not scale:

One-ninth of the WORLD’s population watched the 2006 FIFA World Cup final. Social media vs. Television for marketing purposes just doesn’t match up.

But in my view, this is looking only at potential reach around a single, fixed-in-time event. And surely the predominant global brand on display during the match was the FIFA World Cup — all the rest of the advertising space would have been segmented to maximise the returns available in each broadcaster’s market. This fragmentation of ad space is exactly the domain and power of the long tail — where social media can provide a resonance and relevance to niche audiences.

Having said this, there is an issue around the human resources required to activate a social media program. As Peter says:

I do believe social media can help sell. Social content has started integrating into traditional tactics like banners and emails. I have a better opinion of Comcast after Frank helped me with my cable modem and will resist Verizon FIOS for a while longer. From my last post asking if social media matters, the commenting consensus seems to agree, with its impact in awareness, consideration, and preference.

But if social media marketing matters, then does it scale?

I don’t think so. I think the technologies scale. But the programs – especially those with a labor-intensive component – don’t.

The labour intensiveness of an active social media program can become a bottleneck. There simply are not enough Richard@DELL’s around to help every person with an issue. However, the aim — or certainly the aims I normally have in mind when constructing a social media or digital strategy — is to foster the growth of a community in such a way that “external participants” begin to play an active role. So rather than taking a broadcast view of social media, the aim is to facilitate a range of participatory action/activities. Effectively this means using social MEDIA to activate social NETWORKS.

In doing so you have to manage the constraints — COST, SCALE or CONTROL. Any change you make to one will impact both the others. The more you activate the social network, the less control you will have of your brand, your messaging and your story. Yet this is the cost-benefit paradox — for while you release your brand, your services and maybe even your support into the wilds of the social media landscape, you find, perhaps, a more authentic brand story coming to life — a story borne out of a participatory experience between your evangelists and your everyday or casual consumers.

Understanding Facebook for Marketers

Smart Bloggers, Social Media

I remember years ago hearing about Facebook. It was early days, very focused on student profiles — and MySpace was clearly in the ascendency. As part of my daily routine I would randomly click through profiles, looking at my own, my connections and the friends on the periphery of our intersecting lives.

When asked by my family about my work, I would struggle to explain the hours I would spend navigating through bad profile after bad profile online. They could not understand that this was research, immersion and about understanding a new form of business. From the outside looking in, it probably bordered on voyeurism.

What was clear to me, even then, was a sense of performance. Here in words and image (and atrocious formatting) were people from all walks of life … fretting and strutting their hour on a new global stage. It was fascinating to see (and sometimes hear) what people would share — what they were comfortable with, who they would claim as “friends” and how the lines between “friend” and “acquaintance” held no sway for this connected mass of individuals.

Years later, Facebook is a media monster. Not only do they have millions of registered participants who have linked, connected, profiled and segmented themselves, they also have a sway of marketers keen to leap in and mine, message and measure them all to within an inch of their digital existence.

Is this bad? Or is it the quid pro quo for free access?

Whenever I hear talk about reaching a young audience, or “digital strategy”, it is inevitably followed up with the muttered words “viral” or “Facebook”. It seems like a default response that is devoid of any real understanding of the population of Facebook. Matt Dickman has single-handedly decided to remedy this situation, producing a FREE ebook, The Face of Facebook. And while it is focused on the US population, it provides a primer for all marketers considering their first forays into social networks.

Please read it.

My Blogroll is Not Dead

Smart Bloggers

With Twitter and Plurk peforming a strong role as a link sharing platform, the relevance of blogrolls has become questionable. However, blogrolls do have an important role in building a community, demonstrating a blog’s "membership" through self-branding. And on a more practical level, blogrolls do make a handy way of visiting your favourite blogs.

But, to me, blogrolls allow you to step into the world of the blogger that you are reading. It is like being invited into the inner world of a blog author — and by flipping through the "bookcase" of your favourite (or new) bloggers — you are able to step into, and understand a little of the CONTEXT in which they operate. Think about it. When you visit the home of a new friend, do you check their bookshelves? Do you look through their CD collection or MP3 list? What does this list tell you?

If you are new to this blog, please take some time to visit the sites that ARE on my blogroll. These are the websites that I read regularly. They help create my context and frame my thinking. I read almost all of them every day.

Over the next few days I will also be adding the following to my already large list. Be sure to check them out:

Amber Naslund’s the brandbox is a great site focusing on social media and its alignment with business
Julian Coles’s AdspacePioneers has injected a lot of energy into the marketing blog scene in Australia
Mike Arauz’s combination of essay and commentary on new media, marketing and technology
Ann Handley’s breathtakingly personal blog that reminds us all that storytelling is not a lost art
Steven Collins’ AcidLabs site is a great resource for those wondering where social media is taking the enterprise (or perhaps it is the other way around)

Image courtesy of the tombstone generator.