I had an agency I work with ask me this yesterday. In the spirit of true Social Media, also known as Generation C (consumer, connected, community, creative, controlling, content) rather than create my own definition I found a great presentation on Slideshare.  My short answer to the agency is Web 1.0 was about traditional media, adding another channel for brands to talk 'at' people. Like TV and radio Web 1.0 was a medium to spout brand messages and product info. Web 2.0 has brought about a new media, Social Media. Instead of a monologue there is now a dialog. The conversation is two way between consumers and brands. This huge shift in media calls for a new marketing strategy. It's not sufficient or effective for that matter to use traditional media tactics in this new social media.

 

| View | Upload your own

For those interested, I'm participating in a free American Marketing Association webcast next month. The topic is Unlocking Social Media’s ROI through Engagement & Participation. I'll be talking with Peter Kim, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research and Blake Cahill, Sr. Vice President of Marketing, Visible Technologies. You can register here.

I was at the now semi-famous Twitter session this week at Web 2.0. You can see some interesting discussions by Des Walsh and Jeremiah Owyang on the subject. I commented on both discussions.  For me the Twitter session confirmed my opinion that while entertaining, there isn't a clear business value on Twitter as a stand alone channel. I definitely believe monitoring Twitter conversations for discussions about your brand should absolutely be a part of a Social Media monitoring plan. But that isn't specific to Twitter, it's listening to conversations across the entire social web. This Twitter session had the Twitter feed showing up on the big screens so everyone in the audience could see what everyone else is saying. This was hugely distracting. The Twitter feed took center stage of the session and anything the panelists said was trumped by what the audience members were saying to each other about stinky people sitting next to them or that Robert Scoble walked into the room.

What the session did prove is Twitter can be useful as a backchannel tool during group presentations. It would be difficult for a speaker to monitor Twitter herself if she is presenting, but if it's a panel or a group of speakers someone can be monitoring the Twitter feed and make needed real time adjustments if needed. That was pretty cool because I did see one of the sessions I was in getting a lot better once the moderator started taking feedback from the audience via Twitter.

I just completed my first day of sessions at the Web 2.0 Expo. Definitely a bit of brain overload but overall I've been underwhelmed.  Only one session I attended today talked specifically about business goals. Groundswell authors Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff gave a great presentation based on the material in their new book. They did a great job of driving all strategies back to business goals. According to them the last thing to consider in a social media plan is the technology. It's crucial to understand and be very clear up front what business challenge you are trying to solve for. As basic as this sounds, very few people are talking about this. I sat in on a Community panel session this morning and the majority of the discussion was around tactical elements; How do you get the traffic? How do you moderate the posts? What I wanted to know was what business objectives they were trying to accomplish? Are they trying to lower support costs, raise brand awareness, upsell check out carts?

I have to say I've seen Twitter used in an interesting and productive way. Two sessions I was in the panel moderators were monitoring Twitter feeds to get real time feedback on the session. They were able to take questions from the audience and get at least one session back on track that was getting very dry. I still haven't seen a clear business reason for a brand to create a presence in Twitter. I definitely see value in monitoring tweets and responding when a brand can offer help and assistance to customers. But that doesn't require a brand to have a presence in Twitter, that's part of a comprehensive social media management plan where brands should be listening to all different online channels of discussion, not specific to just Twitter.

On a somewhat amusing note the amount of social networking opportunities is comical. Here are all the possible links a Web 2.0 attendee could participate in; Twitter, Blogtropol.us, Facebook, Crowdvine, Fireball, Backchannel, Flickr. I've checked a few but not much conversation on them. I have yet to see the value of at least half of them. As one keynote presenter said today, don't innovate just to be innovative. Make sure there is a business problem you are trying to solve. I'm pretty sure we don't need 7 different social media sites to find out where people are having beer after the keynote.

Hope better for tomorrow.

In honor of Earth day yesterday I thought I would take a minute to share the things I do with my kids to make sure we are aware of our earth and natural resources.

1. I have a new rule I only allow myself to drive to work 2 days a week. The good thing about this is I condense what errands I would need to do in those 2 days I have the car. The other days I either carpool, work remote, or take our fabulous MSFT shuttle.
2. We recycle 80% of our trash. We are very lucky in Seattle to have such a good recycle program. We rinse out most all packaging (cream cheese, ice cream containers) and recycle
3. I send my kids lunch to school in Tupperware, not plastic bags. They never have garbage after their lunch to throw away.
4. We wash and reuse plastic water bottles.
5. I bring my own bags to grocery stores.
6. I will never take a bag from a store where I'm buying something if it's even remotely small. For example, the kids and I hung out at Barnes and Noble Sunday afternoon. They each got 2 books and carried them out of the store, no bag needed. I bought a post card the last time I was in Vegas to send to my dear Grandmother and the store actually offer me a bag.. for a postcard! You'd be amazed at the trash you save by not taking bags all the time.
7. We buy and use the more expense light bulbs.

Of course I still haven't figured out how to make up for the 4 years worth of plastic diapers I filled the landfills with when my kids were babies. Ahhh.... always learning.

No surprise there. Google grabbed the top spot on the list of this years most powerful brand.  Apple's moved up, and poor Marlboro is barely clutching on to the top 10 by a hair.

1. Google
2. GE
3. Microsoft
4. Coke
5. China Mobile
6. IBM
7. Apple
8. McDonald's
9. Nokia
10. Marlboro

I've watched reaction in the blogosphere to MyStarbucksidea and it's been quite interested (original post here). Some heavy bloggers really hate the idea, like here and here. But if you read down in any of the comments the response has been much more positive that the bloggers are giving it credit for. Much criticism has been around the fact that it doesn't work like a social networking site should. I would argue that it is not at all intended to be a social networking site. It's an open forum for customers to say what they want and for Starbucks to hear the good and the bad. Why is that such a bad idea? If you disagree with this idea then you have to add Dell's Ideastorm to the mix. Ideastorm does the exact same thing.

These bloggers have taken the opportunity to jump on a negative brand bashing bandwagon without pointing out the good things the site has done. I agree it's not a perfect execution. Starbucks may have been better served by leveraging the love of the over 800 current blogs devoted specifically to Starbucks. They have an online community that already exists and it would have been interesting to see what that community thought of the idea first and how they could help spread the word. But having said that I think it's a real shame fellow marketers would throw any idea under the bus that is as customer focused as this one is. 

This is Monday morning quarterbacking from people who weren't running up and down the field Sunday afternoon. Unless you are out there everyday trying and failing and trying again to crack this Social Media code as I and many other marketers are I don't think you have the right to judge. Maybe it looks easier than it is, because I will tell you it's not. I haven't seen a brand yet that has found the secret sauce, but as a supporter of markerers like myself I applaud them for trying. It's become far too easy to judge and criticize from afar. If you aren't running a business everyday that lives and dies by the product innovation, positioning, marketing opportunities and yes... marketing, please understand that for those of us who are small victories are mighty.

AND.. FYI Starbucks is listening. The number one request from customers was a frequent shopper card, a coffee punch card, and Starbucks has announced a Card Reward Program that will work with their existing Starbucks cards. Customer register their Starbucks card online and will be eligible for coffee discounts. Rock on!

I came across Buzznet for the first time today. Caroline McCarthy does a good job of explaining. My favorite part is where the CEO says he definitely doesn't see Buzznet as another social networking site because goodness knows we don't need another one of those. Rather he likes to call it a Socially Programmed Community. Um... what? How is this not a social networking site? Let's review the features;

1. you can invite your contacts/friends to join
2. there is members section that highlights the most 'buzzed' people, videos, photos
3. you can see who's online now
4. you have to create a profile page to participate

So let's call it what it is, a social networking site for the young music lover. Their growth strategy is to become relevant in the music vertical then expand to other areas, fashion, healthcare, etc. Buzznet is making the assumption that MySpace and other existing social networks aren't serving this community well enough. Risky bet? Yes. But who knows, stranger things have happened. My issue with this type of Social Networking site isn't that they shouldn't participate, I say the more the merry. Why not, I'm not an investor... But IMHO the smarter strategy is to figure out how to participate where the person can aggregate who they already are on the web in their existing communities and bring that goodness with them. Example, why doesn't Buzznet let you use your MySpace page as your profile. You could bring your existing friends and a profile you've already created to their community and still participate. The more communities that sprout up the harder it is to convince someone to virtually Start Over again. I'm all for talking about music, or fashion, or whatever, all over the place. I just want to be one person with one profile that can be shared across networks.

I'm working on something that does this for Windows Live users...  look for it end of June!

A new campaign caught my eye this morning for a couple of reasons. 1. I'm always interested to see what new gimmick campaign brands are coming up with. 2. I love style so any competition where style as the key factor.. I'm in! 3. It's powered by Yahoo and need I say more...

Full disclosure, I don't shop at Kmart. I don't even know where one is. I'm a die hard Target shopper. I know this is an area Kmart has been struggling to get into. I am definitely their target audience. I'm a middle class mom who loves a good deal and shops at Target and Pottery Barn. They have to date made no real strides in this area. Being a person in their target I have not seen anything that has enticed me to try them. Even in this campaign they have failed to offer any nugget that fits my interest. Starting with the judges; the top judge is Jaclyn Smith. While I remember her from her Charlie's Angels day she certainly isn't a fashionista I'm going to be inspired by. The rest of the list are people I don't recognize. Had I not been a marketing junkie I wouldn't have looked twice at this campaign.

A few other things I think are a miss;

1. no opportunity for viewers to vote themselves and be a part of the selection process
2. no connection to 'real' style editors and since this is partnered with Yahoo there was a huge opportunity to link to Yahoo content
3. no opportunity for profiles of candidates to highlight their own blogs
4. the clothes they are highlighting are very high schoolish. This is not a bad thing unless you want to attract shoppers like me.. which they do.
5. the whole look of the website and campaign is borderline tacky. Again, it appears to be focused on the teenagers but that will make no strides with the mom audience, and with 3 of the 6 judges being over 50 it's a miss. If the target is teenagers then they judges should align to that.
6. No cross promotion with Yahoo, it's not highlighted anywhere on their portal page.

Having said all that I'm going to submit and see what happens!

I've been perusing through Spaces and have found people doing some really cool stuff. Mom's raising kids, Dad's wring poetry. I'd like to hear from you. If you are doing something you think is really interesting on your Space please reply to this post with a link to your Space. Remember, for me to see it you can't have a private Space. I'm working on a new community initiative for Windows Live and great customers are at the core of the program. So share away, I'm excited to see what you all are cooking up!