april 2008

This post is from from my other blog here

I have seen posts and Twitter messages about the newly release trust research that Forrester's Josh Bernoff posted about earlier today. I have a great deal of respect for Josh, I just have some questions. In the hopes of getting answers to some of my questions about the survey I am going to post them here and ping the people at Forrester to engage and answer some of the common ones that have come up.

Here is the chart in question:

Questions

• What are the demographics of the survey respondents? Marketers are going to take this research at face value without knowing if this research might scale from generation to generation.
• Does the category "known expert" include or exclude bloggers? For example, if you're 18 and looking for product reviews of technology chances are good that Engadget and Gizmodo are very high on the list.
• With the 30% trust of bloggers, is that for unknown bloggers who may come up in a random search or it is generalized to all bloggers? Does that differ from an unknown opinion site vs. a known opinion site?
• As the tail quickly falls from short to long for the majority of product categories, mass media coverage drops out of the picture. Does this take into account long tail, niche categories or are you talking about things like refrigerators and vacuums vs. left handed Cuban cigars or organic dog biscuits?
• Finally, I found this information through Twitter and blogs. Do I need to wait until somebody I knows calls me or I see it on TV to trust it?

Feel free to add your own questions to this list. What is your take on the research? Does this jive with your feelings of trust? Do you trust it?

Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, Forrester, trust

This post is from from my other blog here

• Not Using Tweetscan to Manage Your Brand? You’re Not Doing Your Job File this away as a great example of a company listening, responding and winning new fans. (tags: listening socialmedia business twitter)

This post is from from my other blog here

Communication is happening at a faster pace than ever before, but many companies are not adapting their communication strategies/processes to keep up.

Search engines are indexing content within minutes, micromedia outlets like Twitter are delivering messages real time and blogging allows mass communication to happen with very few barriers. Rumors and leaks will never go away, but companies now have the tools to be the first to provide key, relevant information.

The 15 minute Google rule.

Almost without exception within 15 minutes of posting to this blog I receive a Google alert email that there was a new post matching one of my keywords. (Seriously, if you haven't done this yet, do yourself a favor and click here to set them up.) I have "Matt Dickman", "Techno//Marketer", "technomarketer" and "Fleishman-Hillard" alerts set up as well as alerts for competitors and clients. I often get Google alerts for items before they show up in my RSS reader or are floated to me in email.

[Update: I posted this entry at 9:43pm and I received my Google alert email that it was indexed at 10:02pm. See screenshot below.]

This is invaluable information to have and it illustrates the point that I am trying to make. Companies who have typically thought that they could control the news and release it when and to whom they saw fit are at the end of the line.

Mergers and acquisitions, executive departures, layoffs and regulatory approvals are just a few of the topics that employees, shareholders and the general public are hearing about in near real time. It takes just one blog post, a Twitter message (the example that comes to mind was the Yahoo layoffs that were broadcast on Twitter as they happened) or an email that sneaks past the firewall and the story is broken. Google's search spiders are constantly scouring servers looking for new information and once found (or told) they broadcast it to the world.

Danger Will Robinson There is danger for companies in communicating in real time. Facts still need to be vetted and rumors that are unfounded can hurt a company's reputation. However, the tools are in place to allow faster, transparent communication to all of the stakeholders so that they don't find out from a Google Alert. Companies should be using these tools to become more connected with their audiences and be the first voice on any issue that impacts their people or their business.

How might this play out? Here are a couple of ways that I can see companies adopting new technologies to communicate more quickly and more accurately in the future (and some are already doing this today):

• Sales force empowered by micromedia. Go beyond names like Twitter and Jaiku to the core technology behind those services. Imagine a company that has a private version of Twitter to communicate in real time with their sales force. Price changes roll out in seconds, questions are answered quickly and customer service follow up is prompt.
• Internal communications blog. Some companies are using internal-only blogs, ...

This post is from from my other blog here

If I were to give you a tip on the most powerful tool any company has at their disposal to positively impact their brand, would you act on it? When companies talk about branding, they often turn to the standard creative elements. They conduct focus groups and prepare branding briefs before the first pixel is pushed into place on the logo. If you're really serious you have a whole identity package. But that's not branding, that's just a logo right? From there they create the marketing campaign. Print ads are created to build emotional connections with people, TV spots reinforce the company image and convey the same emotions. Hundreds of hours are spent planning the website, the information architecture, the experience design, the content. When it's all said and done you have one damn fine looking marketing campaign.

Most companies know that part (very few do it right). The part they don't get is the tool that I am talking about. Customer service. Customer service is so powerful that it can make up for bad products, downtime and inconvenience. Conversely, poor customer service can kill even the most well thought out, killer product or service.

A brand is the sum of the interactions with an entity over time. Still, the last interaction with a product or service usually sticks with us. How many times have you felt your opinion of a company turn sour when somebody in the store isn't helpful? How many times have you sat on hold waiting in line only to not really get the answer you're looking for?

The last interaction is the only one that matters.

So why is customer service so often overlooked as a branding tool? It's hard to get right. Here are some of the challenges:

• It takes time. Lots of time. Customer service takes training, dedication and people who are aligned with the company's goals. Time is money after all and most companies look at the short term outlay instead of the long term benefit of building customer loyalty and creating a great total brand experience.
• High turnover. Typically customer service is made up of entry level folks packed into small offices strapped to a phone 8 hours a day. Why not really turn to results-based incentives here? Why not dress up their work area so they have a great attitude and convey to your customers?
• Everyone is in customer service. This means the CEO, the VPs, the account people, the programmers, the designers, the administrative staff, everyone. This is a key shift in thinking that needs to take place. One off day for one person will have an impact on your brand image. The last interaction is the only one that matters. You may not get another chance.
• Not just for consumer packages goods. Customer service happens in every industry whether you label it customer service or not. Law firms, ad agencies, PR firms and accountants all are in customer service. The problem is that it's not ingrained in their ...

This post is from from my other blog here

I have been hearing murmurs about Facebook's new chat application for months. Within the past couple of weeks that chatter has intensified as they systematically roll out the service across the community.

Here is a quick video overview of Facebook's new chat service

[Feed readers please click through to the post if you cannot see the video.]

Key takeaways:

• The service is nicely integrated into the site, not overwhelming, seems to be where I thought it would appear in the design
• Follows very familiar interaction models of other, more popular chat services
• Will be interesting to see if they allow 3rd parties to hook into this to extend the functionality
• User control here looks to have been handled correctly, you can turn it off and on

To help you stay on top of what is happening and to filter the myriad options, you can now subscribe to the Techno//Marketer podcast on iTunes. Get updates in real time when new videos become available.

If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

You can watch this and other Techno//Marketer videos on your video channel of choice:       

Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, technology, Facebook, chat

This post is from from my other blog here

On May 4th and 5th I'll be attending, and speaking at, Sun Microsystem's Startup Camp 5 in San Francisco. The event is about 1/3 panels and 2/3 unconference (where the agenda is set on that day). I am really honored to be sitting on the "Notes From Mission Control: Rules For a Successful Media Launch" panel alongside S. Neil Vineberg, Jyri Engestrom (co-founder of Jaiku), Christina (CK) Kerley and Mark Modzelewski (CEO of Stealth Startup).

Other panels on the 4th include the likes of Matt Marshall, Stowe Boyd, Pete Cashmore, Brian Solis and Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz. You can check out the full schedule here and see the impressive attendee list here.

I'm really excited to go to the startup capital of the world and learn from some of the best minds in marketing technology. I plan on shooting lots of interviews, meeting people that I've admired from afar and sharing my expertise (and midwestern perspective) with an audience who is willing to be bold with their marketing and use of technology.

If you're going to be there or would like to try to meet up while I am there (I'll be there through the 6th) drop me an email or leave a comment!

Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, technology, Startup Camp, Sun Microsystems

This post is from from my other blog here

I'm finally set up again to do more video for you guys and this is the first one on the new equipment. Thanks again for your patience.

FriendFeed stormed onto the social media scene a couple of weeks ago and has received a lot of buzz. To break it down into the simplest terms, FriendFeed allows users to create one RSS feed that combines all of their social media touch points. You can then subscribe to your friend's feeds and have one single feed that combines all of their feeds. In the end, you can consume a lot of information in one stream instead of going to 8-10 disparate places to do the same thing. You can add me here.

Information overload is a real problem with social media, especially for those who are new to the space and could become easily overwhelmed. Services like this one are popping up to solve the information overload problem. The service is entirely opt-in so you follow who you like and you can remove somebody at any time.

[Feed readers please click through to the post if you cannot see the video.]

Key takeaways:

• Information overload is a real problem as social media outlets grow daily
• RSS is the technology that enables FriendFeed to scale and grow
• RSS feeds can be combined, shared, redistributed and consumed in a number of helpful ways
• FriendFeed allows users full control over who they follow and they can un-follow people at any time

If you know of a service that you would like to see me cover in a future post, just let me know by email or by leaving a comment on this post.

To help you stay on top of what is happening and to filter the myriad options, you can now subscribe to the Techno//Marketer podcast on iTunes. Get updates in real time when new videos become available.

If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

You can watch this and other Techno//Marketer videos on your video channel of choice:       

Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, video, Inside//Out, RSS, FriendFeed, technology

This post is from from my other blog here

By now you most likely know about Radiohead's experimental release program for their newest album "In Rainbows". Basically, the band set up a site where their fans could buy the album for whatever price they wanted to pay. People could have paid $0 or $100 if they wanted. You can read my original post along with what I decided to pay here.

Radiohead is continuing to find innovative ways to allow fans to own the brand in a personalized way. The latest idea is a contest in partnership with Apple and their Garageband product. It allows people to buy their song "Nude" (track three) with all of the independent pieces of the track. So, you can buy the drum track, the bass track, the guitar track, the strings track and the voice track all independently.

Once people have the pieces of the track, they're encouraged to remix the song using Garageband to create a completely unique take on it. Once they have a file they then go to the site www.radioheadremix.com and load their track into the community. Once there, people can vote for each track and create a widget to promote their entry.

This is a fantastic idea as a way to allow fans to get involved with the Radiohead brand, create something that is their own and join in a community of other, like minded fans. More companies, bands, products, teams, etc. need to look at this model as a way to create deeper engagement. Providing raw assets that can be used to create original, personal by-products could be powerful. It's not for every brand, but for Radiohead and their fan base it works well. Take a listen to some of the songs, they're quite incredible and took an obvious time investment.

Technorati Tags: community, marketing, Matt Dickman, Radiohead, social media, Techno//Marketer, trends, widget, branding

This post is from from my other blog here

Personas are an extremely valuable tool for marketers in any field. If you're not familiar with the term, personas are representations of your target audience based on research and interviews. From PR to digital to advertising, any marketing team or agency can benefit from developing client- and/or brand-specific personas.

As an example, let's say one of your target audience types is a 18-21 year old male who likes emo music, skateboarding and high-end electronics. You would come up with a name for this person along the lines of "Nate" and you would find an image of him to use in your planning. When you start making decisions about marketing strategies, you would check back to "Nate" and ask if it would reach him. What would reach him more effectively? What message does he need to hear. That is a basic model of persona development. Here is some more information to guide you through the process.

Why personas are important:

• Personas put a face on the customer. Some persona programs give people names so you can refer to them and see them in a physical representation. The agency Organic creates persona rooms where their people live so the project team can become fully immersed.
• Personas remove the tendency to think of yourself as the customer. You have to step back and this gives you the structure to do so.
• Act as a guide throughout the process of developing marketing communications programs, cross mediums (print, digital, outdoor, TV, etc.).
• Keeps designers, copywriters, programmers on track and avoids waste by remaining focused on the customer.

How people screw them up:

• Personas take time and research to get right.
• This includes some time in the field and meeting face-to-face with the customer.
• People think they know their customer without looking at data.
• Personas are often used up front in the marketing strategy process and don't carry through the process.

How you can avoid screwing them up:

• Get data. Collect it from the web and third party sources. Analyze web traffic. Do in-person interviews and ethnography. Get a big picture view and then analyze it objectively.
• Talk to your customers. Videotape them. Record the audio. Take notes. Come back with a real feeling for who you are trying to reach.
• Compare what you saw to the data and look for the insights.
• Evolve the personas over time. Adapt them as your product lines change or the economy changes. These should be living, breathing entities.

A great sample model. I found this great model on Idris Mootee's site in a post where he compared the problems that MBAs and MFAs have in the workplace. It's a great start to being able to wrap your head around these ideas.

1. Finding the users Questions asked: Who are the users? How many are there? What do they do with the system/brand? Methods used: Quantitative data analysis. Documents produced: Reports.

2. Building a hypothesis Questions asked: What are the differences between the users? Methods used: Looking at the material. Labeling the groups of people. Documents produced: ...

This post is from from my other blog here

Many of you have seen tag clouds on the sidebars of blogs across the blogosphere. They are visualizations usually showing the relationship between categories and the frequency they are used. If you're looking to see what has a blogger's attention, this is a good way to do it (you can see my tag cloud to the right).

I love that tag clouds give you another way to see the data. It's more interactive and is a great way to show attention. A new site called Tweet Cloud has taken the tag cloud idea and integrated it with Twitter. In the service, you go on, enter your name and the service creates a cloud for you. The bigger the word, the more frequent it has been used.

Here is the Tweet Cloud that I created from my account:

Take a peek, enter some of your top Twitter friends and see what has their attention.

Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, tags, Techno//Marketer, trends, Twitter, User Interface Design, Visualization

This post is from from my other blog here

I'll be blogging and shooting videos over the next day and a half at the Virtual Worlds 2008 conference here in NYC. I'll also be posting updates on Twitter as well as here on the blog. If you have questions drop me an email or a Tweet. I'll update this post throughout the day.

Keynote: Mattel toys actually has a Chief Barbie Girl who is focused on making sure that the Barbie brand stays relevant and engaging. Toy lines need to scale with kids to stay relevant to their lives. Barbie Girls is for girls ages 8+.

The barbiegirls.com world was named the fastest growing in a recent report. First world focused on girls with a unique, focused offering. Highly customized avatars allow a lot of combinations and more connection/engagement. The world allows socialization and friendships to be formed in a fun and very safe environment. The world allows for multiplayer games that bring girls together like the makeover game that allows people to become a stylist and interact with each other.

"Virtual worlds as the new playground." Kids now are digital natives and they think of toys differently. In 10 years, the people entering college and the workforce will be 100% savvy to virtual environments.

Some statistics from some Mattel-sponsored research:

• Just 39% of moms feel websites are safe and secure
• Just 38% use the tools to make the web experience safer
• 78% of moms are influenced by their offline trust in brands in their online interactions.

The Mattel model is Educate, Empower and Engage. E3.

Educate: Making parents comfortable and being transparent in the interactions. Allowing parents to understand how to monitor what their kids are doing. Making sure it's easy to understand. Also educating the kids so that they understand the safety features.

Empower: Allowing parents to monitor and update their daughter's settings. The experience is very empowering for the girls as well. Users have full control over who they make friends with and can be seen by. Blocking and reporting features are built in.

Engage: Taking steps to build a tool where the kid and parents can set their own rules and agreements. This encourages an up front conversation about the rules and expectations. Time spent, safety settings, etc. are agreed upon together.

The future of Barbie Girls. Moving to a subscription model with Barbie Girl VIPs. There will still be a free experience to allow any girl to connect. VIPs will be world celebrities. VIPs will have exclusive access to clothing, have virtual tiaras and access to VIP-only areas.

The world is seeing huge growth with between 20,000 and 30,000 new signups a day from around the world. That's amazing.

From the tradeshow floor: Lots of interviews to come in the next week or so. The number, and breadth, of companies participating in the tradeshow is pretty impressive. Vendors surrounding all areas of the worlds from consulting companies to companies that build sims and avatars to the companies that run the world platforms to e-commerce companies and everything in between.

It's pretty interesting to see ...

This post is from from my other blog here

I'll be attending the Virtual Worlds conference in NYC this Thursday and Friday and I want to ask you a question.

What do you want to know about virtual worlds?

The overall feeling that I pick up on from most marketers that I speak with about virtual worlds is predominantly negative. There has been a lot of media hype, a lot of lessons learned and some nice successes as well. Certainly virtual worlds have a future as a communications vehicle/marketing launchpad/community/engagement platform, but I want to know what you have on your mind.

Do you want to know demographic information? Who the key players are? How you build a sim? What the average cost is? What the differences between worlds are (SecondLife vs. There)?

You name it and I'll do my best to track down that information and record it here on the blog, on Twitter and in videos that I'll post here at the end of the day.

Just leave a comment here on this post or you can send me a direct message on Twitter or just drop me an email. I look forward to hearing your questions and tracking the answers down for you.

Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, strategy, Techno//Marketer, technology, virtual worlds

This post is from from my other blog here

This is not a gadget blog, but I do love a good piece of technology that solves a problem. If you travel and are in and out of airports like I am, do yourself a favor and pick up this little guy. It's the Monster Outlets To-Go power strip. It allows you to pack four outlets into one very small footprint and I love the simple, compact design.

Situations it has come in handy:

1. You are at the airport and somebody is using the only outlet in the whole terminal. You walk up to them and ask if you can uplug them for a second to plug in the power strip. You then run their laptop, your laptop and two of your friends with the same power supply.
2. Even when event planners think about supplying power for laptops, the outlets are still few and far between. At the conferences I attend nearly every person has a laptop fired up (some blogging and some checking email). All you need is to find a power outlet and you can be a hero to three other people giving them the needed juice.
3. At a number of presentations that I do, the venue runs a single power cord to the front of the room for the projector. I always have my laptop plugged in during presentations "just in case". The point is, no matter what happens, all you need is one power source and you're good to go.
4. You're in a hotel room with, for some unknown reason, one power outlet around the desk area (like the one I am in right now). This puppy lets me charge my laptop, camcorder, camera and phone.

I'll share some of my other favorite business travel tips from time to time. If you like little extras like this please let me know and if you'd rather I stick to marketing content let me know that too. I'm here for you.

Technorati Tags: travel, tips