Conferences & Networking

Social Media Marketing Summit: Brand Spotlight on Wells Fargo

Posted on Oct 2, 2008 in Conferences & Networking, Social Media | 1 comment

Another brand spotlight on a brand that’s really made social media work for them.  I’m surprised that I actually use this bank and never knew about some of the nifty things they are doing with blogs.

• Edward Terpening, Vice President of Social Media Marketing, Wells Fargo

Great presentation – well put together and I’m very excited that some of these brands that seem so dry have been so lively and and actually interesting.  At least, I’m interested so I hope you are too!

Bullet Point Review!

• 10% of internet traffic comes from YouTube
• Social media is important to build trust.  People resonate with other people’s experiences.
• “A brand is what people say about you…when you’re out of the room.” – Jeff Bezos, Amazon.
• Marketing is becoming an opt-in activity (TiVo, satellite radio, different media and technological ways of avoiding ads).
• Wells Fargo was the first major US bank to blog in 2006.
• Brand blogs: blog about attributes of your brand that strike a chord with your customers (e.g. Stonyfield Farms, Dove, Guided by History)
• Product blogs: blog about your product, seek feedback, and participation (e.g. GM Fastlane, Student LoanDown)
• Entertainment/Educational: have fun (he changed the slide too fast for me to see the whole thing)
• They got started by experiencing the culture and seeing communication culture evolving (email signatures, SMS, websites).  Read blogs, then commented on blogs.
• Joined the blogosphere with authenticity and relevancy – Guided By History commemorated 100 year anniversary of 1906 earthquake and shared info from their internal documents from back then when they were around and helped to rebuild San Francisco.
• Guided by History was their first blog and initially intended to be a short term blog they figured would die down after the hype of the anniversary did but people still enjoy it and wanted more stories.
• Bloggers for The Student LoanDown are all authentic college student interns or recent graduates that tell personal stories related to debt consolidation and other financial concerns of college-aged people.
• Stage Coach Island – community on Second Life translated to an outside blog.
• 40-50 bloggers that are connecting with consumers on a personal level.
• Banking is traditionally very impersonal, so bloggng has been a great way to connect.
• They can’t do some things because their industry has a lot of regulaions  (e.g. they don’t accept full names, only aliases, to protect identity and stick with their standards).
• It took time to cultivate and recruit bloggers with the right voice and explain what social media is.
• 3% of comments on blogs are negative – most people expect that percentage to be higher.
• Communities in general want to have a positive, productive conversation.
• None of their bloggers are professional communicators – they want them to be authentic and be themselves.  Balance their blogging with day jobs.
• Had to set standards and guidlines in terms of comments and emails.
• When you launch, “stay in the room” and pay attention, participate in the buzz.  Shows you’re part of the community and not there as a leech.
• Tone recipe = Individualism + brand + audience culture.
• Know your audience: read + participation = dialog
• People become more civil when they realize there’s a real person.
• When they go off topic, they get high engagement.
• You have to be part of the ecosystem.  Let them know you’ll be the best source, but you’ll link to other places if you’re not the best source.
• Was hard to get comments, even with prompting them with questions.  So they integrated a comment box within the blog post and made it accessible – doubled the amount of comments.
• Recognize & reward active participants.
• Launched a vlog that’s fun & relevant to the history of the company has really driven traffic and engaged the community.
• Blogging alone is an incomplete social media strategy.
• Get out of your sandbox.
• Find your customers wherever they are, listen and participate when it makes sense.
• Hard to create buzz – just take existing buzz and amplify it.
• Doing some things with Facebook – Someday Stories, Facebook page for Stage Coach Island, can run Stage Coach Island on Second Life through an application.
• It’s another way to have a dialog with customers.

Points brought up during the Q&A

• How to get traffic?  Understood where the target audience was hanging out, used SEO but didn’t buy ads.
• When someone votes for a person to get their someday story, they also vote for a cause.  So while a person will win $100,000, the cause that wins will receive a donation of $250,000 (partnered with Habitat for Humanity, Boys & Girls Club, some others) as an incentive to get people to vote and participate.
• Creative definitely varies based on the audience.  They take cues on creative from the community, as well as looking at the demographics and the right topic.
• Any initiatives targeted to an older age demographic? CEO Product, retirement product RSI.
• Surprised to find a VP of Social Media Marketing, how’d he come to this position?  Came on as a consultant, before that headed community at Cnet, was blogging as a painter for awhile as well so he had the community experience.  The size of the team is 4 people, which is tough with 80 product groups and are looking to extend their reach with social media agencies.  Fairly small team.

I loved the last question asked!  I really was interested in that as well, and it was awesome.  Ed was a very competant and relaxed speaker, which also helped to digest the OH so sexy topic of financial blogging.  I also liked hearing about their network of bloggers – reminded me of some of the things said yesterday about the Best Buy Nation where they sort of ask their employees to work double time, but it’s employees who are voluntarily doing it.  Good stuff.

Social Media Marketing Summit: Brand Spotlight on Cisco

Posted on Oct 2, 2008 in Conferences & Networking, Social Media | 2 comments

This presentation focused mostly on Cisco’s launch of a new router ASR 2000, but they parlayed a singular product launch into an entire social media network for Cisco for uber users of networking tools that brought fun into the mix.

• LaSandra Brill, Manager, Web & Social Media Marketing, Cisco.

Wow… the computer she was using prompted her to restart now or later for automatic updates and she clicked Restart Now, so there was a hiccup in the program, so to speak.  I have to give her props that she totally knew her presentation and continued on, even citing accurate figures, and just picked right back up.  The entire audience groaning “ooh, noooooo” when she clicked Restart Now was amusing.  But as I said, she held her own and recovered very well.

I saw an interesting tweet that someone came just for this presentation because they possibly have a less sexy product that this tweeter has!  Good point – making a networking router exciting is quite the feat.

Bullet Point Review!

• Marketing in a web 2.0 world is much different than traditional marketing.
• Foundation of the campaign was the uber user – created a micro site to gather registrations for the launch event.
• Normally this happens a week or so ahead of time, but they instead used fictional characters to say something a bit more vague while being fun and interesting.
• Traditional campaign leveraged on a social media level.  Used videos on YouTube, Facebook, etc.
• They created a Facebook group to leverage for this launch, but also didn’t want to make it toooo specific because they wanted to utilize it later.
• Group continues to grow even after the product launch.
• it is a long tail, but they feel that it’s worth it.  They don’t pay for the sponsored group, but utilize the free group to minimize investment.
• Advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable.
• Created a game (Edge Quest) and used it with a tournament to create buzz in the blogosphere.
• Leveraged Second Life as well with a pre-event live concert, launch event countdown calculator.
• They did research before venturing into Second Life and found that they did have a big audience within SL.
• Created a video of the launch event on SL and posted that on YouTube and Facebook to leverage and cross publicize.
• Created a widget that became viral with an embed code for bloggers and social media.  ProBlogger picked it up.  Free advertising is awesome.
• Because the widget is hosted on their servers, they could update it whenever and it’s syndicated.
• Built up anticipation and speculation about the product to entice bloggers to write about them through teaser releases.
• Vaguness kept speculation fueled and buzz going.
• Leveraged the concept of a social media release – clear & simple, ensure accuracy, build community, easy access, attention-grabbing, embed code for sharing.
• Saved a ton of money by having a virtual product launch over an online only product launch.  Only had to utilize John Chambers for an hour of his time instead of half a day.
• Reached 128 countries with a prerecorded launch video.
• Lessons learned:
  • Avoid hidden costs – ensure roalty free access to videos so that content can be re-purposed on social media sites.
  • Test, test, & more test – widget was a new tool so the embedding perfection took more time than anticipated.
  • User generated content – the UGC on Facebook was the most active discussion with the “Top 20 Signs you’re an Internet Addict” thread.
  • Edge Quest ASR Design Craft content was a bust – the promotion for this was lost in the promotion for the tournament itself.  Lesson – stick to one message.

Points brought up during the LaSandra Brill Q&A

• Cisco has a big voice, so how does this translate to smaller business?  You have to make it sexy, a router is very routine and they made it sexy – was in their top 5 product launches of all time.
• Most costs were soft costs – human time, engagement.

Overall a great session – at first I admit that I was worried it would be a snooze fest but it was actually really interesting to see how well they leveraged many different venues of social media to launch this product and the success they acheived with it.

Social Media Marketing Summit: Tara Hunt

Posted on Oct 2, 2008 in Conferences & Networking, Social Media |

So blogging Shel’s keynote worked nicely, so here’s my take on Tara Hunt’s presentation.

• Tara Hunt, Founder and CEO, Citizen Agency.

Something unique that I noticed right off the bat is that Tara’s presentation had a lot of slides, but they weren’t information – they were just words on the screen that she was reading, which I wasn’t too keen on actually.  But it was definitely a different take on a presentation that might really connect with some people just because it’s outside the box.  Towards the end it slowed down and there were a ton of lists, which I find helpful, and I hope you do too!

Bullet Point Review!

• Whuffie is a social media currency idea coined by boingboing.
• #1 component to raising whuffie – turn that bullhorn around.
• Focus on individuals while understanding the needs of the community.
• Developed 10 Commandments of Feedback
  • Thou shalt listen to the “experts”, but design for novices.
  • Thou shalt remember that what people want and what they say they want is very different.
  • Thou shalt respond to all feedback, even when thou need to say, “No thanks.”
  • Thou shalt not take negative feedback personally.
  • Thou shalt give credit to those whose ideas you implement.
  • Thou shalt flag even small changes thou makes.
  • Thou shalt be agile: make small, incremental, iterative changes, rather than hold off for big ones.
  • Thou shalt realize that sometimes the smallest, simplest improvements make the biggest impact.
  • Thou shalt remove thou’s ego from the picture (it’s not about thou).
  • Thou shalt avoid consensus at all costs.
• #2 component to raising whuffie – become part of the community.
• Figure out what problem you are solving and for whom.
• Join them, but not as a voyeur or for market research. Authenticity matters.
• You need to be remarkable – why should they choose you over a competitor?
• Word of mouth is really going to amplify sales.
• #3 component to raising whuffie – create amazing customer experiences.
• 10 Things to Create Amazing Customer Experiences
  • Pay close attention to details.  (The lining of a handbag, Easter eggs on a website.)
  • Go above and beyond.  (Find a great example within the industry, and knock it out of the park making it better.)
  • Appeal to emotion and nostalgia. (Creates relationships between consumers & your brand.)
  • Be a social catalyst.  (Connect your customers with one another on whatever level they’re going to naturally connect at, not necessarily around your brand.  Ex: white headphones on iPods)
  • Inject fun into your product.  (Flickr coloring contest from a few years ago is an example of not taking yourself too seriously, as is Virgin America’s silly airline safety video).
  • Experiment and be agile. (Try little things all the time, Threadless is a good example.)
  • Turn banality into something fashionable.  (Method cleaning products are trendy.)
  • Design for flow.  (Think like a game designers, increasingly more difficult challenges, game like flow to engage with each other.)
  • Let people personalize.
  • Make happiness your business model.  (Make it core – competence, connected, autonomous will all boost happy.)
• #4 component to raising whuffie – embrace the chaos.
• You can’t control the message, especially in social media.  The more you try to control it, the more it fights back.
• Lay the foundation, set a template & get ready to discover the everyday magic.
• 7 Ways to Embrace the Chaos
  • Stop moving and look around until you see everything clearly.
  • Transfer the knowledge.
  • Every tome you feel anxiety, acknowledge it.
  • Define your own measures of success.
  • Get outside of your personal circle.
  • Realize that everything is out of your control anyway (the zen point).
  • Have patience.
• Whuffie only works if it’s circulated.
• #5 component to raising whuffie -find your higher purpose.
• Find a way to give back to the community.
• A lot of companies do good AND make money so you can pay your rent.
• Think: what can you give away something that won’t leave you broke?
  • Democratize something – give something to everyone that they didn’t use to have access to.  Blogger gave this to journalism, YouTube gave it to production.  What did you used to have to hire an exper for?
  • Open it up – open source is good and allows people to get involved.  WordPress is a great example of a late comer who just did it better by using open source and innovating faster.  They only have a team of like 5-6 people still due to open sources adding value.
  • Build bridges – connect things, embrace data portability like OpenID.
  • Spread love – give people incentives to be better people.
  • Value something bigger than yourself.
• Being whuffie rich will lead to better word of mouth, increased sales, and a big fat increase to your bottom line.

Points brought up during the Q&A

• There is a power shift going on now, and as people understand it they will embrace it and demand it.
• The inevitability of social media is clear.
• Are there certain segments of industries that ‘get it’ more than others?  Perhaps eco-friendly stuff?  Tara didn’t have any stats but it would certainly be interesting.  She does see a lot more eco-friendly companies with Facebook & social media interaction, as well as fashion and politics.  There’s still a lot of consumer products that need a lot of help.

I wish there had been more time for some for questions, despite not having any questions to ask myself.  I have found that I’m learning more, actually, from hearing other people who are a bit more confused than I about social media asking questions.  Good stuff thus far!  I hope all you readers are enjoying my blog-o-thon of the day’s sessions, brought to you by the fact that the company I work for now has provided a much better laptop than my own!

Social Media Marketing Summit: Keynote 2 Shel Israel

Posted on Oct 2, 2008 in Conferences & Networking, Social Media | 2 comments

I’m going to attempt to post this RIGHT after it’s done, so as I’m typing Shel Israel is talking.  Don’t worry about not being rude.  I have an uncanny knack of being able to type without looking at the screen.  Nifty, huh?  I digress, this presentation was given by:

• Shel Israel, writer, GlobalNeighbourhoods.net

Shel took most of the presentation to talk about people he’d interviewed.  Some of the anecdotes were useful and some were just that – anecdotes.  I only outlined some of the more interesting ones for you that might have some take-home value.

Bullet Point Review!

• Has been following social media since 2005, taking a business look at human stories.
• He gets paid to interview people about social media & how it impacts their business and culture.
• Whether you want to or not, social media is where it’s going.
• The internet came and gave us email, but it wasn’t as conversational as social media.
• The growth of social media has been more phenomenal than people realize.
• When they started their book in March 2005, there were about 4 million bloggers worldwide, not that impressive.  If you add up all the social media content now you get close to half a billion people.  And growing.
• There are great tools to find the conversation – Google Alerts, Radian6, Google Analytics.
• Since starting his project, he’s done 110 interviews, 33 countries, 5 continents (mostly bloggers).
• 2 billion people will be online by 2011.
• Michael Dell, Dell Computers.
  • Dell might just be the world’s most prolific social media company.
  • Conversations are more valuable than ads.
  • Engagement beats impressions.
• Laurel Papworth, social networking strategies.
  • Was invited to help set up a social network for Saudi women.  Shel Israel asked her ‘what are they like’ and she said ‘they’re like all women’.
  • They need anonymity online to avoid real world repercussions and need to support each other.
  • Queen Rania of Jordan is on YouTube with near 4 million visitors doing almost daily posts & talks about the myths about Muslim women.
• Isaac Mao, China’s first blogger.
  • The rate of growth for Twitter and Facebook seems to be higher than blogging in China.
  • The Chinese blogging community has figured out how to bypass firewalls to publish outside of China through use of IPs, etc.
  • Feeds the collective power of crowds.
• People’s voices will be heard – they are going to use these tools to have the conversations they used to have at the water cooler and now it’s amplified and can travel around the world very fast.
• Sun Microsystems is using a behind the firewall internal social network to collaborate and get products to market faster.
• Youth is the killer app.  Its driving everything because social media is coming second nature to the upcoming workers of the world.
• Tools are allowing people to interact online much like they already interact offline.
• People are the same.  Cultures differ.
• Useful info > pitches.
• Community now has the power.
• Generosity is competitively lethal.
• Adoption is faster than you think.
• Scalability is the new ROI.
• Measurement is being resolved.  This is what people are super focused on this year.
• Using social media in a recession: it’s the most cost-effective option for communications with customers.
• 1 person can scale worldwide very quickly.

Points brought up during the Shel Israel Q&A

• What would you have in your shopping cart for low cost options?  He hasn’t a clue – when he started, it was just blogging, but now there’s a powerhouse of tools.  Where are your customers?  What tools are you the most comfortable with?  There are basic tools, but you may be better with one over another so you have to decide.
• Is there anything going on within the political campaign use of social media that businesses can learn from?  They’re using incredible intelligence gathering tools and this is the first presidential election in history where social media is playing a role.  Looking back during the next election will be interesting.  This is a big step in a revolutionary process.  People’s voices are being amplified.

Overall a good presentation, well done, with valuable case studies and a few ace takeaways.  This is the first time I’ve heard Shel Israel speak, so it was a great opportunity that I hope to repeat at future conferences.  There wasn’t much time for questions, but I get the impression that the questions would have gone on into generally tangential directions, so perhaps it was for the best.

Social Media: The Marketing Summit Day 1

Posted on Oct 1, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking, Social Media |

Day 1 has concluded with some great after hours discussion for the Social Media: The Marketing Summit at Moscone Center West in San Francisco, presented by mThink.  A day full of good pannels on various aspects of social media, including the panel with myself, Brian Caldwell, and Celine Takatsuno on the affiliate channel and how social media applies.

Unfortunately due to some public transportation issues, I didn’t make it on time for the first half of today’s keynote by Charlene Li of Altimiter Group, co-author of Groundswell.  What I did hear was some key insight, and I look forward to finding some notes on fellow attendee’s blogs!

Brian Solis delivered with some great words of wisdom that were highly sought after (the slides of them, anyway) after the session.  He had some really good actionable items in terms of creating a social media plan and allocating time and efforts that the attendees were really intrigued by.  I definitely want a copy to assist with my own understanding of social media planning!

I met with my co-panelists through the Ticketmaster brand highlight so unfortunately I missed that talk, then noshed, then came our panel.  I thought we did pretty well, and for my first more traditional speaking engagement.  I got some good feedback on the panel, including some nice tweets:

@shelisreal – @briancaldwell, Celine Takatsuno & Trisha Fawver are talking about SM & affiliate mktng. Not my fav topic, but these guys are pretty good.

@lornali – @briancaldwell with Trisha Fawver & Celine Takatsuno on social media & affiliate marketing

@TTaxChristine – @TrishaLyn enjoying your discussion of the tie between affiliates and social media. #SMMW08

After our panel were the fellows from Best Buy responsible for their internal social network Blue Shirt Nation, who were a blast to hear from.  There was also a panel on segmentation that I didn’t actually think was that great, and finally a presentation by Karl Long from Nokia on making your customers work for you using social media – great stuff.

Of course, i’ll post my notes as always in coming posts, but I’m jazzed to attend tomorrow’s sessions and soak up the social media goodness like a sponge!

CJU Course: Exploring Affiliate Marketing Opportunities

Posted on Oct 1, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking | 1 comment

I promised more from CJU, and more I shall deliver!  This was an informative session, mostly featuring a lot of analytic and numbers supplied by Jupiter Research. The speaker was:

• Patti Freeman-Evans, Research Director & Senior Analyst, Jupiter Research.

Kind of dry, but had some good information.

Bullet Point Review!

• Affiliate marketing will have to change and adapt with the general economic conditions.
• Weak dollar, housing value declining, tighter credit markets, rising retail prices, possible inflation.
• It’s a slow process for consumers to come back.
• Online retailing up 15% in 2008 (estimated).
• Online retail has been doing well, but starting to slow from economic down turn.
• Online buyer much more affluent than offline shopper.
• Online still going up because people don’t want to drive.
• 30% of consumers believe that they can get a better deal online.
• 36% of offline sales are influenced by online research.
  • Expected to raise to 50% by 2012.
• 2008 – 6% of total US retail sales made online.
• More people looking for financial services online.
• Online retail sales reached $39 billion for 2007 holidays.
• Many CEO’s of multichannel retailers looking for growth.
  • Expect a lot of free shipping offers, discounts, coupons, etc.
• Increase in number of people looking for free shipping online.
  • Worth looking at ROI, but doesn’t necessarily create incremental sales.
  • Harder to turn that free shipping/discount customer into a full price customer later on.
• Online ad spend is 1/10 of total ad spend.
• Printed ads are lagging in performance and are expensive.
• Merchants are looking for cost-effective alternatives in advertising.
• The pace of display ad growth is faster than, but no bigger than, search.
  • Mostly due to advancements in targeting.
  • Better value for the money.
• Seeing growth in new media experimentation.
• Advertisers prepare for rich media & video, less static banners & text.
• Affiliates are the ones taking the risk on the sale.
• 13% compound annual growth rate – $2.1 billion.
• Affiliate industry is growing at ~9%.
• Publishers need to be relevant!
• Never underestimate the ignorance of the government regarding the internet.
• Other states are looking at the NY Tax issue and to the online area for taxation over the next 18 months.
• By 2012, 51% of online shoppers will be female.
• By 2012, 56% will be over the age of 35.
• By 2012, 41% will have an annual income of $75k+.
• By 2012, 69% will be Caucasian.
• Now – online shoppers are affluent & Caucasian, split evenly between male and female.
• Don’t concern yourself too much about other languages now as most online shopping is done by English speaking individuals.
• Consumers are making fewer decisions before getting online to buy.
• Only 31% known the item they want before hand.
• Search in research process has grown.
• Fundamentally, social media is influencing decisions by way of reviews, but otherwise not having a large effect.
• Consumers are more likely to start the buying process at the retail site they want to purchase from.
• Over time there could be a paradigm shift to social media.
• Online buyers go to three sites on average during the buying process.
• Google increases solidifies it’s dominant position as top traffic source for most retail sites.
• Why do people go to other sites?
  • 71% : To see other prices
  • 41%: Like to shop around
  • 29%: Looking for free shipping
  • 29%: Looking for more product information
  • 23%: To get a sense of what other people said about the product
  • 23%: To check other sites offers
  • 23%: To see expert reviews
  • 21%: To validate product information already found
• Put what the people are searching for on your site so they don’t have to leave (i.e. include reviews, comparison pricing, product info, etc).
• Consumers trust reviews, spend more on those products, and become loyal.
  • 69%: Impulse buyers
  • 60%: Brand advocates
  • 60%: Loyalist
  • 52%: Directed buyers
  • 48%: Overall online users
• Learn from reviews to create communication strategy.
• On average consumers come back to the site 2.5 times.
• About 20% of online retailers include “Recently viewed products” to try to cross sell other things the consumer already looked at (Amazon is the best example).
• Loyalists are not as profitable as customers (they’re just as likely to abandon in favor of a lower price).
• Use direct customer input to set achievable buyer expectations.
• About 60% of online retailers have persistent carts (i.e. when you leave the site & come back, the items are still in your cart or gives you the option to save items for a later purchase).
• The sooner you can give the customer information on incidental feels (shipping, handling, processing, etc) the better.

There was no time for any questions from the audience because it was so JAM PACKED with data and information.  Every slide Patti shared had great graphics, which was kind of hard to concentrate on, but great for any data and analytic nuts that want to see concrete research represented in lovely chart format.  I know this definitely inspired me to learn more about perfecting charts within Excel!  Great stuff overall for affiliate managers and online marketers alike.