Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights Blog and Podcast - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image

Trading Analog Dollars For Digital Pennies

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:33:35 -0500

Trading "analog dollars for digital pennies" is exactly how the traditional media sees the new online channel. If they focus on selling online advertising, they're only getting a fraction of what they used to get (or are currently getting) when compared to print, TV or radio. The problem with this terrible analogy is that their "analog dollars" are plummeting and instead of looking at the "digital pennies" to add up and add value, most media companies still see it as table stakes.

The lesson is simple: stop comparing this new media with the traditional channels. New media is driven by powerful, interactive and immersive content that the consumer actively navigates verses passively receives. If we've seen anything in the past five years it is that this comparison demonstrates one thing: traditional media channels don't understand new media and that they don't want to (or are afraid to, or they are not sure how to).

What could a traditional media company do to stop this type of shortsighted thinking?

Here are the six major reasons why traditional media is having such a hard time with new media:

1. They would have a hard time opening up due to fears that people might say bad things about their advertisers. In turn, the major fear is that those advertisers would stop working with them. They need to embrace the power of peer reviews and all the trust and loyalty that is does, in fact, bring.

2. They are still trying to optimize the monetization of their traditional channels. The same ones that have been around for more than one hundred years, yet they expect the new digital channel to turn some kind of significant or similar profit even though this new channel is hardly ten years old.

3. Their sales staff and business development team are still struggling with how to understand the channel. The clear value to the advertiser and the complete offering is still murky. It's hard for them to sell something that is different and that falls outside of their level of confidence and expertise. If the sales team don't have total confidence in what they are selling, you can be sure that the advertisers know it, feel it and smell the fear.

4. Their content producers don't want more work. They're not being paid more, but are expected to understand everything from Blogs and Twitter to online video and Podcasting. While the media companies do offer training, the overall vibe that Journalists are giving off is one of resentment. There's a feeling that the Publisher is just trying to get a lot more content out of them for free, while at the same time their photographer friends are being used less and less (or being let go entirely).

5. Their infrastructure is not built for digital. These companies have spent the past eighty years investing in printing presses, newsstands, physical distribution channels and more, a shift to a digital end-product is confusing and messy. It puts everything they have known to date in question and forces them to re-look at everything, including their own value and existence.

6. They gave it away. When online advertising first came out, most traditional media companies offered it for free or as a value-add, or gave it very minimal pricing just to warm advertisers up to the opportunity. While that is a sound business strategy, it's also a dangerous one. Advertisers are very resilient to pay for something that was once free and they have an even harder time paying more for something than they have become accustomed to.

Here are six questions that traditional media companies can answer and brainstorm on:

1. What more can you offer than just online advertising?
2. What can your digital properties do to enhance your client's traditional advertising?
3. What can you - as a media company - do to make your advertiser's online property more efficient and effective?
4. What if you could not offer your clients any form of advertising on your property, but instead had to look at alternate ways of bringing them online from a Marketing perspective?
5. What kind of existing online channels are working, and is there a way for you to partner with those spaces to bring a more holistic online program to your advertisers?
6. Who is going to do this type of work in your organization? Can people either be trained or do you need to find new people?

Final thought: why don't traditional media companies create a new physical area (how about an office space away from everyone else) and set-up those interested in the above challenges and questions. Let them spend a few months tinkering and experimenting. Let them make mistakes, try out new models and be dramatically different. Bring together the content producers, the sales team and the business development folks (bring in some Digital Marketing people too). Let someone from IT play with them as well. The final result can't be any worse than the current state of the industry (check this out: Forbes - The Newspaper Guild's New Pitch: Survival). At best, they'll discover how much real work will be needed for their company to grow, adapt and turn some real profit in the new media world.

What other questions do you think traditional media companies should be asking and brainstorming on?

Tags: advertisers advertising analog dollars digital pennies blog digital marketing forbes interactive it journalism journalist media media channel media company monetization new media newspaper newspaper industry online advertising online video peer review podcasting publisher publishing publishing industry traditional media twitter

The Twitter Tragedy - Lost In Live

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:25:21 -0500

It doesn't really matter how many people are following you on Twitter. What really matters is how many people actually see your tweets. The two are not at all related, and this one major factor is why Twitter should never replace a Blog or anything else you are doing in the online channels. Twitter is a live channel and once that moment is gone, it's gone. Just like that radio program you just missed.

This seems to be one of the biggest challenges that most Marketers don't want to discuss about Twitter. Even though all tweets are archived, searchable and indexed by the search engines, the amount of people that actually dig into the archives or search for past tweets is probably smaller than minimal. On top of that, the only way to look back on someone's Twitter history is by date. There are no categories, tags, etc... The value of this content is low because it is staggered, messy and not all that search friendly (and even if it was, the context is all but lost if you are not in that moment of when it was first created).

This does not mean that you should not use Twitter.

It just means that even though someone is following you, there is a big chance that they never see any of your tweets simply because when they are on Twitter, you may not have posted a tweet in and around the same time that they are there. There's something else: Twitter works best when the people following you are actually not following that many other people. The more people they are following, the more likely it is that your message will get lost in the shuffle (if they even see it at all).

Here's the Twitter tragedy: the content is live, short, fast and has no long tail.

Many people have abandoned their Blogs and other channels for the immediacy and ease-of-use of Twitter. It is, without a question, a different type of communication, way to connect and place to build community, but it is not an alternative and should not replace anything else you are doing in these social circles. If you're looking for a quick and easy way to keep consumers in your loop, answer individual questions or post quick blurts about what's going on, then Twitter makes it easy to publish. But, the content is next to useless for any other consumer who is searching for the same answer at a later point in time.

Twitter is cool, fun and a very interesting place to post, follow and engage in some great chitter chatter, as long as you remember: on Twitter people don't see you because you've left messages. They only see you when they are there. Also, unlike like Blogs - where posts that are older get more search engine love due to traffic, linking, etc... Twitter is the opposite: the newer and fresher and more frequently updated tweets are the ones with all of the value.

What an amazing Twitter is could be if you could properly archive tweets, organize, sort and search them more efficiently (beyond Twitter Search).

Do you think Twitter is more than an "in the moment" channel?

(hat-tip to Julien Smith).

Tags: blog in over your head julien smith long tail marketer marketing micro blog online channel online social network publishing search engine social circle tweet twitter twitter search

Let Crowdsourcing Do Your Marketing Research And Development

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:40:26 -0500

What if you took everything you had and made it publicly available on the Internet? What if you opened up your most secret of secrets and encouraged your customers, friends, family members, peers and, yes, even your competitors to play with, tinker and devise that better mousetrap?

It sounds a little insane. Welcome to crowdsourcing.

"For the last decade or so, companies have been looking overseas, to India or China, for cheap labour. But now it doesn't matter where the labourers are - they might be down the block, they might be in Indonesia - as long as they are connected to the network. ... Technological advances in everything from product design software to digital video cameras are breaking down the cost barriers that once separated amateurs from professionals. Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labour isn't always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees. It's not outsourcing; it's crowdsourcing."

That's how Jeff Howe first coined the term, "crowdsourcing" in the June 2006 issue of Wired Magazine for the article titled, The Rise of Crowdsourcing. He followed up with the book Crowdsourcing - Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business (Crown Business), and he also blogs where he includes another definition:

"Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call."

It goes by many other names as well. Some call it "mass collaboration," others call it "the wisdom of crowds," and when money becomes a part of the play, best-selling author and technologist Don Tapscott wrote about it and called it Wikinomics.

And with a new way of looking at and doing things comes with it all of the usual controversy as well. While there are some obvious and inherent benefits to crowdsourcing that include cheap (and sometimes free) labour, the exploration of business problems at a fairly low cost, and payment (if there is one) happening based on results, many feel that there are also many bigger issues with this type of channel. According to Wikipedia:

"The ethical, social and economic implications of crowdsourcing are subject to wide debate. ... Some reports have focused on the negative effects of crowdsourcing on business owners, particularly in regard to how a crowdsourced project can sometimes end up costing a business more than a traditionally outsourced project."

There are even some slight nuances to the nomenclature according to Wikipedia as well: "The difference between crowdsourcing and ordinary outsourcing is that a task or problem is outsourced to the public rather than another body. The difference between crowdsourcing and open source is that open source production is a co-operative activity initiated and voluntarily undertaken by members of the public. In crowdsourcing the activity is initiated by a client and the work may be undertaken on an individual, as well as a group, basis."

Threadless is a new type of clothing company. The wildly popular e-commerce website sells a unique brand of T-shirt. They are designed by you, for you - literally. Instead of working tirelessly with a slew of designers or spending time in Europe trendspotting for the latest fashion craze, the owners of Threadless decided to crowdsource their product. Anyone is welcome to design a T-shirt.

The designs are then posted and voted on by the community on its website. The designs with the most amounts of attention and votes get produced and sold on the website. Threadless does not design T-shirts. Threadless crowdsources the design and then produces and sells them.

Threadless manages a community. The community creates the product. What do you think their annual budget is for new products development and design? How do you think that compares with American Apparel or Old Navy?

Wikipedia is one of the best and most popular examples of something that is crowdsourced. And, what could be nobler than leveraging a vast network of individuals to curate, edit and crowdsource the knowledge of the world?

Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia that anyone and everyone can edit. The technology is based on a wiki - which is a simple Web page that anyone can write on or update. You can type in any kind of information you would regularly find in an Encyclopedia Britannica, and Wikipedia will return an article (or Web page) that has content that has been created by the entire Internet community.

The percentage of contributors pales in comparison to the users (about one per cent of Wikipedia's traffic edits the actual pages), but the spirit of this content is astounding if you consider that no one is paid anything to contribute or edit, and the company itself - created by Jimmy Wales - is a non-profit organization made up mostly of volunteers. To date, there are over 2.6 million entries in the English version alone.

What does all of this mean to business? Everything. Companies as diverse as Dell (Ideastorm) and Starbucks (My Starbuck's Idea) have embraced crowdsourcing on various levels. Both companies have deployed specific websites that are asking their consumers for their thoughts, ideas and suggestions on what the company can be doing better, or what they should be looking at.

In essence, they're using the power of the Internet and the wisdom of the crowds to get immediate, real and actionable insights from their consumers.

If you needed one question answered about the future of your business, what would it be, and could you open it up to see what a crowdsourced answer might look like?

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:

- Montreal Gazette - Let crowdsourcing do your R&D.
- Vancouver Sun - Crowdsource your research.

Tags: american apparel blog business canwest community crowdsource crowdsourcing dell development don tapscott ecommerce employee encyclopedia britannica future business human resources ideastorm internet internet culture jeff howe jimmy wales labor labour marketing mass collaboration montreal gazette my starbucks idea old navy online community open source outsourcing rd research rise of crowdsourcing starbucks talent technology threadless vancouver sun website wiki wikinomics wikipedia wired magazine wisdom of crowds

#1 Rule For A Successful Blog

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:28:36 -0500

If you had to choose your #1 rule for what it takes to create a successful Blog, what would it be? Mine is: create real interactions between human beings.

Finding your passion is one thing. Uncovering a unique niche is another. Attempting to turn a six-figure income from your Blog might be what drives you, but what will really keep the momentum going and your readers engaged is if you create a platform to not only share your own insights and personal thoughts, but use it as a place to really connect with those readers and enable that to turn the entire Blog into a thriving community.

It's something that will take a lot of internal and personal struggle (especially if it's a business Blog).

There will be moments where you will want to self-promote. There will be instances where you will wonder if you are betraying your clients or your employer for some of the things you would like to Blog about. There will even be instances where you will want to see if you can monetize the property as your popularity and interest grows. It's not a question of ignoring those impulses, it becomes more of an exercise in returning to your roots. Always focus and cherish that first moment where you came up with the name of your Blog and published that first post in the first place.

If everything you do Blog about has an end-game of making you slightly more famous, how does that help, grow and nurture your online community?

Without question, one of the best quotes recently about Blogging was from Hugh McGuire (LibriVox and The Book Oven). In the comments section of this Blog, Hugh said: "Don’t Blog to get known, Blog to be knowable." It's not about Blogging with a tone of "look at me, look at me!" It's about Blogging and sharing who you are, how you connect to your passion and what you think about that will (hopefully) get others excited and want to contribute, join or (hopefully) even start their own Blog.

The conversations are everywhere.

You can find some gems on Twitter and you can see some flashes of brilliance on FriendFeed. There's something warmly beautiful about a well thought-out editorial piece in the newspaper and real modern literature can be found in some of the best business magazines. Blogs fill another arena of media culture. Blogs give every individual the place, space and environment to really dig down deep or blast something out furiously. It shows a different side of an individual and how they flow into their work. It makes people stand-out and be original.

Blogs are one of the few (and only) places where words do, indeed, become real interactions between real human beings. A great Blog is personal and displays the humanity. A great Blog can move and inspire people and teams. A great Blog takes words and makes them human. A great Blog is not doing it because there is a schedule to keep or ads to sell. A great Blog is published when it is published. No sooner. No later.

What is your #1 rule for creating a successful Blog?

Tags: blog blog marketing blogger blogging book oven business blog business magazine conversation friendfeed hugh mcguire human being internet culture librivox media newspaper online community publishing twitter

Comments Comments Everywhere

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:07:54 -0500

New micro-sharing platforms are everywhere. Be it Twitter, your status on Facebook or even FriendFeed, there are many (more places) to drop little notes, thoughts or insights. Couple that with a Blog and/or Podcast and your ability to publish your message is simple, easy and free (if you have the time). But, how are you handling the comments?

Have you noticed that people connected to you on Facebook can now comment on your status updates? It's not that new of a functionality, but it should give you pause to realize just how much your content is constantly and consistently being scrutinized. As one of the ways to manage all of this micro-content, you can even set yourself up so that when you tweet on Twitter that content becomes your status on Facebook. If you thought that might make your life more manageable, think again. With people adding comments on your Blog, on Twitter, on FriendFeed and on your Facebook status, being available to curate and manage all of the comments on top of the content you are creating is time consuming.

Getting lots of comments is a good thing. It means people are interested in the content you are creating. Having said that, the more places and chances that people have to comment, the tougher it is organize from a personal stand-point, but more importantly, the tougher it is to archive the information in some kind of manageable format.

The whole idea behind commenting was to create a story - one that has the thoughts of the content creator and those of the community and audience in the same space. How is one supposed to keep the flow and logic going when the comments can appear in any one-three locations?

How do you manage your comments and keep the flow of the content going?

Tags: blog comment facebook friendfeed micro-sharing podcast publishing twitter

Citizen Journalism Is A Farce

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:28:57 -0500

A Citizen Journalist is no more of a Journalist than someone who gives you good personal advice is a Citizen Psychiatrist. It might well be time to ditch the idea of Citizen Journalism and call it what is: a witness with a recorder.

That was the overarching sentiment brought forward by David Simon the author, journalist and writer who is best known as the writer and producer for the TV series, Homicide - Life On The Streets, and the executive producer and head writer for the HBO television series, The Wire. In what could well be one of the better pieces of Internet video content that I have seen in years, Simon speaks candidly in his presentation titled, The Audacity of Despair, at Berkeley University's Townsend Center for the Humanities on September 10th, 2008 about the newspaper industry, publishing, media and the Internet.

Journalists are trained professionals and add tremendous value to our society by doing more than just reporting on the "who", "what", "when", "where" and "how" of Journalism (Simon says any five-year-old can do that), by asking and seeking out the all important question: "why?" He questions why most major newspapers no longer explore the "why," but instead offer up filtered news that does not address the real issues. His conclusions are a stunning indictment of an industry more concerned with selling widgets over real journalism.

Yes, people can act as witnesses, and now with modern technology they can record text, images, audio and video and publish it, but this does not make them Journalists. Even journalists who no longer work at a newspaper and have chosen a self-publishing route still follow professional rules, values and ethics that are created and nurtured after years of practicing their profession and not bestowed to all simply because publishing is easy and free (and yes, we all know that this does not apply to all Journalists and that there are more than few rotten apples).

If you're at all curious about media and the publishing industry, Simon's take is very different and fascinating. The topic of what a Journalist is in today's society versus what Simon considers a "real Journalist" is coupled with his take on citizen journalism and makes this presentation well worth the watch. Back in May, I posted this: Is Witnessing The Same As Being A Journalist? asking similar (but not as direct) questions about who, really, is and should be considered a journalist in this day and age.

Final thought: after watching this presentation it made me realize (once again) how amazing the Internet truly is. Anyone is able to take part in a Berkeley University special presentation, share their thoughts and enjoy a piece of content that is probably only valuable to a very small segment of the overall population. The true power of the Internet is this: content finding the exact people it was meant to touch, move and inspire.

You can watch his presentation here: David Simon - The Audacity of Despair - Townsend Center For The Humanities (unfortunately, there is no "embed video" link).

Then, feel free to comment on whether or not you agree that Citizen Journalism is a farce?

(hat-tip to Hugh McGuire).

Tags: berkeley university blog blogging citizen journalism david simon hbo homicide life on the streets hugh mcguire internet internet culture internet video journalism journalist media newspaper newspaper industry presentation publishing self publish technology the audacity of despair the wire twonsend center for the humanities witness

SPOS #130 - Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - +1 (206) 666-6056 - On Books, Marketing And The First Social Media President

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:28:46 -0500

Welcome to episode #130 of Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast. Back for another week of interesting audio comments, some personal ramblings and a bunch of stuff I promise to be paying more attention to (and you should be too). Enjoy the conversation...

Here it is: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - Episode #130 - Host: Mitch Joel.

Running time: 41:10.
Audio comment line - please send in a comment and add your voice to the audio community: +1 206-666-6056.
Please send in questions, comments, suggestions - mitch@twistimage.com.
Hello from Beautiful Montreal.
Subscribe over at iTunes.
Please visit and leave comments on the Blog - Six Pixels of Separation.
Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.
or you can connect on LinkedIn.
...or on twitter.
Facebook Group - Six Pixels of Separation Podcast Society.
In a perfect world, connect with me, directly, through Facebook.
Check out the other Podcast, Foreword Thinking - The Business And Motivational Book Review Podcast.
Foreword Thinking - Episode #11 featuring Michael Gerber - E-Myth Revisited and Awakening The Entrepreneur Within.
The Road to Six Pixels of Separation – The Book – coming soon.
Books to check out:
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin.
Content by Cory Doctorow.
ProBlogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett.
Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki.
Remix – Lawrence Lessig.
Technology Review – a great new magazine by MIT.
Audio Comment – Sebastian Kiel – Speaking English Podcast.
Audio Comment – Shel Holtz – For Immediate Release Podcast.
Audio Comment – Robin Browne – Being Buff.
Audio Comment - Chris Goward – Wider Funnel Marketing.
Six Points of Separation – Six Tools And Channels To Check Out:
1. FriendFeed.
2. Sphinn.
3. Delicious deep dive.
4. RoboForm.
5. Camtasia or SnagIt (or both).
6. TweetDeck and/or Twhirl.
Music as suggested by Sebastian Kiel – Speaking English Podcast:
Monkeeman – ‘The Last Ones’.

Please join the conversation by sending in questions, feedback and ways to improve Six Pixels Of Separation. Please let me know what you think or leave an audio comment at: +1 206-666-6056.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - Episode #130 - Host: Mitch Joel.

Tags: advertising awakening the entrepreneur within being buff blog blogging born standing up business camtasia chris garrett chris goward content cory doctorow darren rowse delicious digital marketing emyth revisited facebook facebook group for immediate release foreword thinking friendfeed google guy kawasaki itunes lawrence lessig marketing mass media michael gerber mit monkeeman motivational books online social network podcast podcasting problogger reality check remix robin browne roboform sebastian kiel shel holtz six pixels of separation six pixels of separation book snagit social media marketing speaking english podcast sphinn steve martin technology review magazine tweetdeck twhirl twist image web 20 wider funnel marketing

Will All Media Go Digital By 2014?

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:50:42 -0500

"I want to make a bet with you today. By January 2014 I will wager that in the US almost all forms of tangible media will either be in sharp decline or completely extinct. I am not just talking about print, but all tangible forms of media - newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, boxed software and video games."

That is how Steve Rubel started the post, The End of Tangible Media is Clearly in Sight, on his Micro Persuasion Blog yesterday (BTW, if you're not reading Rubel, you really should).

After running through a bunch of recent news items about how certain media are shifting to digital-only platforms, he continued to say:

"Finally, if you need further proof, when was the last time you bought a CD? Exactly. For me it was back in 2003. I haven't purchased a newspaper in at least two years and the number of people who I see toting them on my morning train have declined too. I cancelled my last print subscription this month and I am now living 100% 'media green.' Also I recently signed up for Safari Books Online and I am liking it a lot, though it's pricey and their iPhone client needs a lot of work."

We all drink from the same water cooler, and it's important to not fall into the, "I haven't bought a magazine in two years... so everyone else will stop too," line of thinking. If you are reading this, odds are you are a very early adapters and while the Web, RSS and digital-on-demand is part of our DNA (or, at least, slowly taking over), take a long hard look at the overall mass population (even look are family, friends and colleagues), and what they do. RSS is not exactly cracking through mainstream (as Steve pointed out), and as much as we all love Twitter, most people do not get it.

Media will shift and it will evolve.

There's also little doubt that as technology gets faster and more readily available, more and more content will also be available through the existing (and soon-to-be-coming) digital devices. As Blogged about a couple of days ago here: Digital Is The Great Disrupter, every industry that has seen their physical products shift to digital have gone through tremendous turmoil. Won't it be interesting to see which types of "physical" devices we'll need for all of this digital media?

Lastly, how "green" will this really be? The last time I checked, there are no organic battery farms anywhere and electricity and electronics are a huge part of our ongoing challenge to truly be a little greener. For us to consume all of this mass media is going to create a new kind of waste, which is going to have an environmental impact on all of us.

Shel Holtz over at the always-amazing, For Immediate Release - The Hobson And Holtz Report Podcast, is known to say, "new media doesn't kill old media."

What do you think? Will all media be digital by 2014?

Tags: blog book digital digital media dvd electronics environmental impact for immediate release green internet iphone magazine mass media media media green micro persuasion newspaper podcast print media rss safari books online shel holtz software steve rubel twitter video game

The Evolution Of The Chief Marketing Officer

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:05:37 -0500

As more and more social media channels like Blogs and online social networks expand, consumers are discussing, reviewing and engaging with brands more than ever before. This newfound connection and communication is forcing a unique evolution of the CMO - Chief Marketing Officer.

Marketing is facing a new reality and the CMO is going to have to adapt like never before. This was the key message out of a study of global CMOs conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Google. The report, Future Tense: The Global CMO (pdf) was written about today on Marketing Charts here: Study - CMOs Must Evolve to Meet New Marketing Challenges.

"Marketers are increasingly able to reach out to consumers at all points along the value chain, not just at the moment a purchase decision is made. Because of this, global marketing of the future must engage all corporate stakeholders with consistent, constant and accurate messaging. At the same time, it must encourage and be able to respond quickly to customer feedback and involvement, pulling stakeholders closer to the corporate brand... In terms of progress toward this goal, 56% of the 263 marketing executives surveyed agreed that their company is highly customer-centric and that marketing functions are interwoven throughout their operations."

How can the CMO evolve? The report offers the following recommendations:

Balancing global brand awareness with local market relevance. Centralizing global marketing functions such as advertising development and production can create economies of scale and save money, but they must be guided by the needs of the local market and customer insights. At the same time, budgets must be freed up so that regional directors can make appropriate decisions based on market demands.

Integrating marketing with other forms of corporate communications. Both the interactive nature of Web 2.0 technologies and the transparency of corporate messages among different constituencies—such as customers, investors, media, regulatory bodies and employees (past, present and future)—demand the integration of various forms of marketing and communications. Businesses can no longer segment audiences and messages as if audiences don’t talk to each other.

Adopting new media. In particular, there should be a specific budget for experimentation with the newest Web 2.0 technologies. To remain competitive, companies must engage customers and fully exploit the interactive nature of digital media to create a stronger affinity with their brands among consumers and other stakeholders. The CMO should have the foresight to anticipate how different constituencies will respond to different events, messages and channels, and should be able to deal with the proliferation of new-media tools and expanded audiences.

Developing new skills, capabilities—and partnerships. CMOs must not only position their companies, but help define them. To do so, they need to understand the fundamental business model, brand, culture, policies and values of the organization. Equally important in terms of adapting to the evolution of new media are partnerships with vendors whose expertise can be used to get new initiatives to market faster—and more effectively—than a company would on its own.

Championing innovation. The need for greater accountability for marketing expenditure is pushing global companies towards digital marketing campaigns with higher returns than traditional media. The interactive nature of the latest digital-media vehicles provides the opportunity to develop deeper insights into customer dynamics and allows the CMO to become the corporate champion of customer insight.

Do you think that the CMO of today can either adapt or evolve to become the CMO of tomorrow that this report is recommending?

Tags: advertising blog brand chief marketing officer cmo communication digital marketing economist intelligence unit global cmo global marketing google innovation marketer marketing marketing charts marketing report media new marketing new media online social network social media technology web 20

Intimacy 2.0

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:29:54 -0500

At what point do you have too many friends, followers and subscribers? The big question we keep hearing about all of these online social channels is, "does it scale?" Maybe the better question is, "why does it have to scale?"

Welcome to Intimacy 2.0.

Right now, most of the online social networks and communications channels seem more like games than anything else. For the most part, the game is about collecting as many followers, friends and subscribers as possible. In the end, that is a mass media model and even though these are conversational channels - much more back and forth than one centralized place that edits and distributes information to the masses - the only way to shift from "conversational" to real conversations is to get more intimate.

The better conversations are the smaller ones. The ones that happen in the hallways and not on the tradeshow floors. The ones that are sparked by a Blog posting but happen on instant messenger or through email.

Perhaps one of the bigger trends we will see in the coming years is the overall pruning of one's online social network down to a manageable level where real interactions between real human beings start taking hold again. Maybe true success in these online social circles will not involve metrics like amount of connections or how many times something happened, but rather how powerful and poignant something is to the specific target market. We all know people who use these channels in that, exact, way. They keep their circles tight and the conversation is very personal... even when it's publicly visible for all to see.

Word of mouth is only successful when the person receiving the message either trusts the source implicitly or loves what they're hearing about so much that the source is simply the vessel that delivers the message. It's a fairly simple form of marketing and communications when you break it down (it's also arguable whether it's marketing at all). Technology is getting to the point where this type of messaging can transcend your physical group of connections. It is quite powerful.

Who would have thought that you could have an intimate connection with someone in another country whom you have never met in person?

The whole quality over quantity debate still rages on because most people (and I can be just as guilty of this as the next person) are not looking at creating valuable and intimate relationships. They're hooked more on the sheer volume of their loose ties. For some, it seems to be more than enough in the snackable content society that we're all creating with every Twitter tweet and FriendFeed comment.

The real question is, just how badly do you want intimacy in these channels or is it simply a number's game and newer version of mass media?

Tags: blog communications conversation email friendfeed instant messenger internet culture intimacy 20 marketing mass media online channel online social network twitter wom word of mouth

Web 2.0 Was So Yesterday

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:16:57 -0500

If you think the days of Blogs, Facebook and YouTube were oh so 2007, it turns out that it's not only fresh as a daisy in the eyes of most Marketers, but there is still a long way to go before it becomes a major part of the overall marketing mix.

That was the general message you could pull from the news item, Marketers Still Face Steep Web 2.0 Learning Curve, in MediaBuyerPlanner today.

"The majority of marketing executives are still in the early, experimental phases of using and measuring social media and 80% say that they have not yet fully integrated the core elements of Web 2.0 into their marketing efforts, according to a survey from the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), reports MarketingCharts.

Among the social media tools currently being used, social networking sites - such as MySpace and Facebook, blogs and video-sharing sites are cited most often (view chart of social media tools).

The survey of MENG members was conducted to gauge the role of social media in today’s marketing practices, and found that nearly 75% of respondents define social media as media that is based on conversations among users (see chart of definitions)."

It gets a little stranger. More than half of the Marketers surveyed see themselves as beginners at using social media for Marketing purposes, and close to ninety percent of them who are involved in programs are not measuring the ROI of their efforts. To top it all off, the majority still see Social Media as the "Wild West." Despite all of that, more than 67% say they will increase their social media advertising budget in 2009.

If they're going to use words like the "Wild West" allow me to continue on that metaphor: "hold your horses!" First off, they don't really use it, get it, or know how to measure it, but they're going to be doing a lot more of it? Plus, are the Marketers surveyed talking about being a part of existing conversations (marketing and communications within the channels) or are they talking about advertising in social media channels?

The language being used in this news item is quite confusing. The Social Media channels have three ways that Marketers can get involved:

1. Advertising - putting display advertising, contextual text ads, affiliate marketing, most of these channels have many opportunities for Marketers, and they're not unlike any type of advertising you're currently doing online (only it's a little bit more expensive because of the mass amounts of traffic and current popularity).

2. Be a part of a community - you can set-up a Fan Page or Group on Facebook, you can start commenting on Blogs and much more. The opportunity here is to look at the existing channels and the existing communities and join their ongoing conversations.

3. Start your own - this is creating your own Blog, Podcast or online community through something like Ning, etc... It's starting off fresh with your own social channel on your own property.

While it may still be the "Wild West" there are many frontiers that are being populated. There are many social circles already formed and established. There are many new types of uses being invented every day. The challenge is to figure out "why" you should be a part of these channels, what value you're going to add and how you're going to measure success.

Tags: advertising blog facebook fan page marketer marketing marketing executive marketing executives networking group marketing roi marketingcharts mediabuyerplanner myspace ning online advertising online social network social media web 20 youtube

Digital Is The Great Disrupter

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:27:40 -0500

Whenever an industry shifts from physical products to digital ones, that's when the real trouble for the traditional players starts.

Think about the music industry, the film industry (both camera and movies), the publishing industry and the list goes on. Whenever the final products shifts from its physical form to a digital one, all hell breaks loose.

Industries respond in the stupidest ways because their gut instinct is to charge the same price they charged for their physical products (sometimes they even try to charge more). After all, it's the consumers' choice if they want a physical CD or twelve MP3 tracks, but it's all worth the same amount, right?

Wrong.

And, the problem with it being wrong is that no one really knows what the right answer is. That being said, we do know - with one hundred percent certainty - that the answer is definitely not, "charge them the same amount." That was the main inspiration behind yesterday's Six Pixels of Separation Blog post titled, New Business Models. It also speaks to something that most of us know, but don't like to talk about: change.

We all love quotes about how change is good, it's the only things that is inevitable (along with death and taxes) and, "if you don't like change, you're going to live irrelevance even less" (General Eric Shinseki, US Army), but no industry can handle or deal with dramatic change - like when a product goes from physical to digital. On a recent trip to a speaking event, the driver was pointing out the ocean and how that specific part of the world was once a great industrial port where ships came to load and unload their stock and fill the whole north-eastern part of North America with goods. He went on to talk about how the shipping has slowed down to the point where that port was now empty, and what a shame it is. We're still shipping, it's just bits and bytes now... not crates and barrels.

Here's the marketing challenge: this is all so new, that most companies would rather hold on to what they know with everything they have than dip some toes into the blue ocean strategy that is partly the present, but mostly the future. Marketers can shape that future. As stewards of the brands, we get an exclusive glimpse into our consumers and what makes them buy and click. We need to be better at looking at our analytics and our trends to help shape not just our companies, but the industries they serve.

It's a tall order. It's one that I don't think the sales, financial, operations and technology departments of a company are focusing on. It's a marketing issue in the purest definition of the Marketing Four Ps. Particularly the "product" one.

Think about your company and the industry you're in, how well would you be able to cope, change and evolve if the very product you sold changed entirely overnight?

Tags: analytics blue ocean strategy brand branding business chenge digital film industry general shinseki industry internet culture marketing marketing four p marketing mix music industry new business model pricing publishing traditional business trends us army