As if direct mail and email campaigns aren’t complex enough, the temptation of social networks sends cause marketers hurtling into No Fundraisers Land. As you might have read in Geoff’s Friday post, we returned from the 2008 Bridge Conference with minds reeling.

Geoff’s recap and the subsequent comment thread touched on flawed Facebook attributes and a call for nonprofit marketers to return to precision-oriented initiatives. True: Facebook isn’t focused . . . yet. A closer look at two examples show that nonprofits are helping to pave the way for fruitful ‘FaceSpace’ endeavors, even if only by brand awareness.

Our first witness: Geoff Handy, VP of Media & Online Communications for the Humane Society of the United States. HSUS is known for pioneering the electronic email era among nonprofits. They have a fierce e-marketing team and an army of support from all stripes.

But even with more than 52,000 MySpace friends and nearly 13,000 Facebook fans, Handy states that social networks don’t generate high traffic for HSUS. When it comes to list growth, marketing efforts in general aren’t big referrers, either. Top sources for names:

• 21% - Website visitors taking actions
• 18% - Tell-a-friend referrals
• 14% - Donations
• 10% - Purchased from 3rd party sites (e.g., Care2)
• And ranking 5th, 8% from Marketing (search, ads, social networks, etc.)

Then there’s Jonathan Colman at the Nature Conservancy. His efforts as an environmental thought leader on Digg! are widely and deservedly praised. It’s no wonder why.

Through a partnership with Lil Green Patch, the fifth most popular Facebook application, the Nature Conservancy has raised $44,650 in donations (and acquired more than 22,000 cause members) on Facebook.

Even with those numbers, Jonathan admits that their inbound site traffic from Facebook is filed under unqualified leads. As mi amiga Sara Strope would say, “Why chase after the $500 donor in a $50 market?”

Colman encourages others to, “Solicit support and CRM agreements from popular applications.” Partnering is smart, but doesn’t work in every case. Beth Kanter is calling for integration and ingenuity across cause-focused applications and platforms. In her own words:

app developers on FB or elsewhere who don’t know crap about fundraising or activism should collaborate more closely with nonprofits.”

Touche. But in the meantime, can we effectively learn from un-ending social media experimentation? The Nature Conservancy isn’t just growing silly dolls in a green patch - they’re seeding activists for future “harvest.” And Jonathan chalks it up to the same point: “Grow community, get data, then fundraise.”

HSUS is also sporting research-colored glasses. They’re using ChipIn, a free donation widget builder that provides the names of people who grab, share and donate through HSUS’ customized widget.

ChipIn gives a nonprofit the ability to reach out and say “Thank you” to a donor, which is a major step in cultivation and action. (The Nonprofit Times reported that - after donating $25 to each of 10 Facebook charities, none of the nonprofits responded.)

Sheeraz Haji, the list junkie who started GetActive (acquired by Convio), says, “Big lists equals more money and more action.” Put your brand out there - wherever you can get your list and integrate targeted, tested messages across offline and online channels. Say thank you. Ask for more.

Thinking is never as good as doing.

Earlier this week Techcrunch posted about the re-launch of Startuply, a free job listing service. The Startuply site is really cool, featuring simple job search functions, company profiles, and even maps of where the company is located. You can post a job listing or search for positions, mostly for web development and design related opportunities, but also for marketing, sales, etc. Companies featured include well-known startups like Twitter, Seesmic, Mint.com, Digg, Evernote, meebo, Slideshare and more

(Photo Credit: Sven Jones)

Social Media Connects Startups with Influencers

The development of Startuply and similar sites proves that there is a huge market for startups, and all of these companies are searching for ways to connect with one another, find talented employees, and share in their successes. What better way to do that than through social media?

It appears that social media can serve to project or repel startups. Consider the successes of Twitter this year. Even among the “Fail Whale” times of downtime, thousands of tweets led to thousands of blog posts which have led to thousands of news articles on Twitter. Now that’s the kind of buzz a startup can only dream of.

Factor in the success of Startup Weekends (and other events like PodCamp and BarCamp) across the country that are filled with attendees who Twitter, post Flickr photos, and blog the events - creating a bustling community of Web 2.0 evangelists and influencers just itching to get their startup out there.

Influentials are the 10% of the population who shape the attitudes and behaviors of the other 90%. And, these influencers are online. According to a recent Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive and RoperASW study, two-thirds of online influentials (67%) are asked for or forward advice and information about products and services, whether it’s about career choices, computers, restaurants, or web sites. They spend an average of 2 hours a day online and nearly all (95%) access the web at least once a day.

(Picture Credit: Social Media.biz)

So What If I’m Not a Web 2.0 Startup?

Companies who cater to Web 2.0 savvy people benefit from interacting with that community. But, what about the companies who are financial (Mint.com), IT and heavily technology oriented, or have a more traditional business focus? They can still benefit from utilizing Web 2.0 strategies.

For example, a client of ours, StackSafe, chose to integrate traditional PR and marketing efforts with social media outreach to help build their online brand. Before the company officially launched at DEMO ‘08, they researched their market and online communities, started a blog, got onto Twitter and Facebook, and hit the ground running. They also developed online solution center portals that integrated RSS feeds, video, Flickr photos and real-time Twitter updates.

The results have been tremendous. A Forrester report touted the advantages StackSafe had by using Web 2.0 tactics to launch their product. InfoWorld named StackSafe a Top 10 Tech Startup in 2008, Gartner named StackSafe a Cool Vendor in IT Operations, and the company was a finalist for the 2008 American Business “Stevie” Award for “Best Marketing Campaign”.

What Can You Do?

Startups should seriously consider social media as a way to get word-of-mouth buzz going about their company. A recent study from Beeline Labs and the Society for New Communications Research found that 35% of enterprises supporting online communities have increased word-of-mouth for their brands and 28% have seen an increase in brand awareness.

By thinking proactively about your brand online and how you want to connect with your community and users, startups can benefit by gathering favor from influentials and developing great relationships that will carry them through the startup phase and beyond.

Fame, (fame) makes a man take things over
Fame, (fame) lets him loose, hard to swallow
Fame, (fame) puts you there where things are hollow
Fame (fame)

- David Bowie, opening lyrics to Fame

You’re Internet famous! So what?

Seriously, so fricking what?

Does it really matter? Apparently so, or at least that’s what WIRED wants you to think based on the cover of this month’s issue.

But perhaps the catch comes early in this How-to celebration of Julia Allison’s rise to fame. It doesn’t raise money, it’s not part of her day job, and there is no financial reward. But, hey she gets invited to lots of parties with folks that most people  read about in US or People.

I guess if that’s what you want, great, but I see no value in it. Too many of the daily business activities that occur in creating social media brands are really thinly veiled disguises to pursue personal Internet Fame (a.k.a. Personal Brand). And that’s a management error, as well as a youthful mistake on the part of the individual.  Because quite frankly, if it doesn’t have a business objective, that junk belongs on the p.m. dial for the ambitious seeking to reclaim their high school popularity contests.

Nothing screams bubble to me more than social media activity for the sake of people getting to know you. That’s a waste. Have an objective, find the people that matter, build value for them and your organization, and make a real difference that will keep you in your seat for a long time. 

Or you can have a lot of "friends." That can work if you want to be a parasocial type headed to the parties, and if I was younger that may still appeal to me. But it doesn’t. For me, branding and relationship building online in social media is the 21st century equivalent of networking and relationship building. And popularity doesn’t necessarily pay the bills.

Doug Haslam is a great example of a personal brand that matters. He is not Internet famous for sheer popularity. His brand means something in the social media marketing world because he brings value to the table. I respect what he brings to SHIFT (see his take on personal brands here).

Think about it. Is it business or personal? Does it make you valuable?

At many of the conferences I attend, I often hear the more fundamental social mediaites make proclamations that marketers have to be active in many social networks. That if you are not in FriendFeed, Plurk, BrightKite, Viddler, Utterz, Seesmic, Spock, yadda, yadda, yadda as well as all of the usual suspects then you are getting passed by (image: social networks hype cycle by fredcavazza).

Most of this energy seems to revolve around personal branding and being a social media “rock star.” So now donned thought leaders by the following of several hundred or more, these individuals try to pass their secrets of success to companies, often under the guise of social media experts. But what about the actual advice?

Bullshit.

Yes, from a corporate standpoint, you need to have strong monitoring program so you are aware of what is being said about the company. Yes, you need to need to participate when issues arise. Yes, as a marketer you have to be familiar with a variety of general social networks.

But, personal branding is not corporate branding. Corporate branding is about a commitment, a very specific promise to a core group of stakeholders. Unless you are a mass consumer brand, it’s not likely that you need to become part of every social network. Instead, basic strategy dictates targeting towards communities of strategic importance: The few where most of your stakeholders are congregating. The rest are just a waste of time. It’s about building a community, not broadcasting messages.

In most cases pursuing every single possible Long Tail hit is really just a waste of time (Harvard Business Review just questioned the validity of Chris Anderson’s vaunted theory as a silver bullet solution). Why? Because if you are an IT services company, it’s probably not an effective use of time to play on MySpace to reach 50. Instead, serious activity on IT Toolbox with its 2 million members makes much more sense.

Even from a personal branding perspective, what are you trying to achieve? Popularity or community? Notoriety or relationships?

Personally, I get much more from being a relatively obscure Plurker with 100 friends than Twitter with the 2000+ following me (see what Plurkers said about this topic). Why? Because the community is small enough that I can have an actual conversation. Twitter is so out of hand after 500 or so that I can’t keep track of it anymore. It stopped being truly social after 1000.

Social media is about people. Customers are people. Social media marketing is about networking and community participation with the right few, from which relationships are developed, in turn creating results. Otherwise you are looking for the instant WOMM bullet. Attainable, but difficult in a media form that lends itself to organic development. Instead, own the right few social networks, and participate in the rest as monitoring necessitates.

NBC recently announced that they will be using this year’s Olympics as a “billion-dollar research lab” to learn how people are using different media platforms. From video on demand to tracking mobile and online users, the research will be used to persuade advertisers to buy ad time on newer media such as VOD and cell phone video.

According to Daily Wireless:

During the Games, NBC will issue a daily “Total Audience Measurement Index (TAMI).” It will include measurements of viewership on all the media venues airing NBC’s Olympic programming — the NBC broadcast network, cable channels such as Oxygen and CNBC, NBC’s Web sites, video-on-demand services and mobile programming.

The mission and excitement is understandable since this will be the first year that online media, video, blogs, etc. will really have a prominent and mainstream role in the Olympics festivities (much like the Presidential election this year), so the opportunity to gather information on social media usage is certainly well received. Online games from McDonald’s are already being released, which will just add to the advertising frenzy.

What Can Go Wrong?

This is a great effort by NBC, and will provide advertisers and the social media and marketing communities with outstanding statistics and information. However, there are three issues with the plan.

1. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has effectively banned athletes from audio and video podcasting, photoblogging and vlogging their personal takes on the event, which largely misses the new media viewpoint audiences are sure to crave. (Source: Podcasting News)
2. The network won’t allow you watch anything it thinks it has mass appeal — that is, anything it intends to air on its own broadcast — until it has shown it on TV, the AP reports. Contrary to the AP report, NBC says “some” events will be simulcast live on TV and NBCOlympics.com. In addition, NBC U is banning the use of any Olympic video online by other news organizations covering the event. (Source: Silicon Alley Insider)
3. NBC does not have any official blogs dedicated to the Olympics, although there are a few athletes who will be posting their thoughts (contrary to the IOC?). This just proves that NBC is not willing to open up the games for comment (although there are sure to be plenty). (Source: Engage in PR)

So, this means that while NBC is obviously open to tracking and embracing web video and mobile traction of the Olympic games, they still want to, in essence, control the message. And, we know that doesn’t work.

It will be really interesting to see the effect of mobile and web usage and how it impacts TV viewing of the Olympic Games. However, what I think may be more interesting is how the back channels (blogs, social networks) react to the inability to access “legitimate” information from any source other than NBC.

Widgets are certainly not a new topic, but are appearing to gain new traction in mainstream media and blogs over the past six months.

Widgets are brand gateways that are rapidly becoming a popular way to market online. A widget is a self-contained piece of code that you can move anywhere on your blog or website, usually found in the sidebar. Widgets include push buttons, selection lists, radio buttons, sliders, scroll bars, text boxes, etc.

There are two sides to every story though, and widgets aren’t immune to that. BusinessWeek featured a CEO Guide to Widgets that included a point-counterpoint series that brought up some great ideas about the benefits and criticisms of widgets. According to "Why Widgets Don’t Work":

Widgets can be a useful extension of your brand, but only if included in a broader portfolio of Internet outreach. Widgets, blogs, online video, public relations, and microsites are all ways to extend your reach online. But you can’t rely on a single application, especially since there are now more than 14,000 competing widgets on Facebook alone.

However, consider the positive future in store for online advertisers who utilize widgets. Web users are tired of online banner ads. Click-through rates are decreasing, and widgets offer a new way to establish a brand relationship while also providing a service. According to "Widgets: The Future of Online Ads":

Right in that little box, without switching sites, users should be able to browse products, customize orders, and eventually make a purchase. Instead of simply trying to build brand awareness, marketers now have the ability to reach out to customers with useful features to enhance their personalized pages on social networks.

So what is a smart marketer to do?

• Think about your audience. A recent survey on ReadWriteWeb shared the startling revelation that almost 50% of Facebook users would use online widgets to manage their financial services if their bank offered it. Forget mobile banking, just tweak the online features!
• Be smart about your widget development. IBM announced its new mashup feature, IBM Mashup Center. This is designed to easily remix information for business intelligence, but the cool thing is that it not only offers innovative mashup technology, but provides another way to utilize the information by offering widget creation. Users can take advantage of built-in Web 2.0 community features like ratings, tagging and commenting to guide users the to the most valuable and useful widgets.

Widgets can offer a cool and more widely accepted alternative to online banner and click-through advertisements. Some people think they are a great and welcome addition to their web experience, others find them annoying and unnecessary.

What do you think?

Do you have strategy-envy over the groups that have it together in the digital badlands? You should.

• Zappos takes its shoes the extra mile with more than 250 diligent, twittering staffers, all part of a full-immersion dive into Twitter sanctioned by blogging CEO Tony Hsieh.
• Everyone at the Indianapolis Museum of Art is down with integrated social media, too - even the curators.

[Photo credit: "Envy" by Bright Star]

It’s your job to follow suit & get your own team on board.

Arthur W. Page Society’s “Authentic Enterprise” states that one of the four must-have responsibilities of Chief Communications Officers is to provide “Leadership in enabling the enterprise with ‘new media’ skills and tools.”


The digital lifestyle is one part enterprise ambassador, three parts personal brand. Even if you have one of the mythical blogging CEO’s on your side, and even if your efforts are endorsed by the board, you still need the hands and feet of your organization to take interest and initiative. [Photo credit: "colourful" by partykitten77]

How about setting a mandate for engagement? Really. Don’t forget to be encouraging and provide incentives. Take it one step further with this [draft] of a “personal digital covenant.” (These are initial ideas to simultaneously rally and rein in the faces of your organization. Suggestions for improvement are very welcome.)

Personal Digital Covenant

I choose to support [The Company's] desire to become more relevant in this digital age. I promise to give my best shot at upholding the following tenants of progressive online engagement, and will encourage my colleagues to do the same:

• I won’t hold us back. Even if I’m fearful or a lazy sack, you have my blessing to try this out, for the sake of all of us. I’ll be honest about my concerns, which I expect you to address. (If you don’t address them, kiss my support good bye.)
• I’ll ramp up. In the spirit of “not holding us back,” I will give this a whirl. If it is my first foray, I’ll sample and ask questions, committing to at least one new space in which I’ll regularly play. Maybe LinkedIn is good enough for now.If I’m feeling frisky, I’ll find friends on Facebook, del.icio.us or Digg something (”and be dugg in return”), and maybe even tweet on Twitter.
• I do not have to be - and will not be - everywhere, all the time. There is real work to be done, obvi. Besides, the novelty of my online know-how will wear thin over time, especially if the bubble bursts or people think I’m screwing around.
• It won’t kill me to read or comment on blogs. I’ve experienced much more pain in my life than setting up a Netvibes account. In fact, if I feel so inclined, I’ll start my own blog on something that I personally care about. Of course I’ll abide by [The Company's] Blogging Guidelines, which exist to help me blog smarter and cover my tail. If you don’t support my blogging ambitions, I need a new job.
• I’m not the Lord of 2.0 Craft. There will always be people who know more about this stuff, innovate cooler ways to put it into action, and have more digi-friends than me. At best, I will try to learn from them and share what I know with others. At worst, I’ll ignore you and everyone else.

Lindy Dreyer warns us:

Any association that refuses to adapt and leverage their community in this new medium is at risk.”

Your community includes your staff. All aboard.

jetBlue airlines has experienced its fair share of ups and downs online. First, it had a fantastic blog, then failed to use it when a series of flight cancellations crippled the airline on Valentine’s Day, 2007. Instead the airline produced a late and often jeered at YouTube mia culpa from former CEO David Neeleman.

jetBlue’s latest foray into social media occurs on Twitter. Unfortunately, a series of events last week demonstrated that while responsive, jetBlue Twitterer Morgan Johnston cannot affect change for the airline.

Two posts on my personal blog — Boo! jetBlue and jetBlue Adds Insults to Injury — detailed a series of bad experiences that occurred last week on different flights. In short:

The complaints and discussion spilled out into Twitter, and soon included Morgan Johnston. To Morgan’s credit, he was very responsive and sympathetic, even DMing me several times. But when it came time to do something, he was powerless to help, instead referring me to a complaint form (note the bonus tweet for District of Corruption Co-Host Technosailor’s Aaron Brazell).

The formal jetBlue response came only a few hours later, but instead of taking actions to alleviate this disappointment an empty apology was issued without relief for the extra costs or time consumed. As a result, while feeling listened to, my experience was a systematic letdown. In turn, jetBlue will not likely receive business from me for a long time.

If companies want to engage in social media then they need to empower online representatives to act. Having a corporate Twitter representative is only an effective customer service tool when representatives can do more than empathize and promote discounts. One of Dell’s great social media strengths comes from empowering folks like Richard Binhammer to act on behalf of the company.

If Morgan Johnston had that power this situation may not have ever gotten to a second blog post, much less this third one on a much wider read blog. Instead, jetBlue receives another public black-eye, and its brand experience becomes tainted.

The second session of NewCommForum I attended featured Shel Holtz of Holtz Communications. Shel brings his insights of employees becoming the brand of a company, particularly through blogs.

What is the definition of a brand?

An audience member says it is how customers perceive you. Shel sees brand as the aggregate of all the experiences you have had with a company, which turns it into what you see, feel, and think. Brand is owned by each individual.

Shel points out that every time an employee says something or does something, and they are NOT happy - it creates a risk. Think of Ryan Kuder being let go from Yahoo!. His experience was chronicled on Twitter.

Positive brand experiences can be created by individual employee bloggers who have the opportunity to represent companies well. Thomas Nelson Publishers provides an aggregate of employee blogs that are highlighted on the website. The most trusted spokesperson of a company comes from a REAL person who just happens to blog about where they work - not the CEO, not the official marketing person.

Examples of Employee Bloggers

Shel shares his experience blogging about a negative experience with Park ‘N Fly, and the following comment from a Sales & Marketing Administrator who promptly responded and offered to make it up to him with free parking (and the all important apology).

Customer service should then be seen as the frontline of the brand and company experience. People who deal with issues themselves are EMPOWRED by their companies, and it’s better for consumers too when they are not constantly approached from a PR or media perspective. Real people and authenticity win every time.

Shel points to the Coca-Cola Second Life Campaign which shared a video update to let consumers know where the campaign was headed and to thank people for participating.

The TSA blog Evolution of Security is aimed at the traveling public to improve relations and have a genuine conversation. The bloggers for this blog are TSA employees who range from screeners to former air marshals, the voices are true and provide an insider’s look to the organization.

Strategies

A few questions on strategy:

• What is the role of internal communications?
• What is the role of content "owners"?
• How do we get them to have the right knowledge but know the facts, without astroturfing?
• What is the role of management and leadership?
• What about policies? On employee behavior and employee access

Overall, Shel says the same thing as Microsoft, "Be smart" (or "don’t be stupid") when you are having employees blog, and when you are blogging about the company you work for.

Greetings from one scattered, multi-media bound Internet user to another!

Since we’re all caught up exploiting various digital tools for personal use - and for our organizations - it might be worthwhile to explore how to manage the toy box. If you’re juggling more than one company-branded, digital property (a blog, a forum, feeds, multimedia assets, social network profiles and so on), then it’s time to drop a little Elfa in the equation.

The benchmark: Dell Community. This site aggregates every available opportunity for engagement and feedback regarding Dell offerings. Checking them off: customer testimonials and reviews, discussion forums, blogs, co-creation points (i.e., IdeaStorm), podcasts, videos, RSS, and Dell’s Information Portal, TechCenter wiki, and Second Life presence. All that housed in one spot, eliminating the need to dig through tedious layers site navigation to find connection points.

All that’s missing is information about how to directly connect with employees online -an undertaking that’s probably more manageable for smaller shops like ours.

Not to suggest that we have our ducks in a row. On this blog alone, a visitor has his/her pick of many options to keep in touch with our team - but half of what we offer isn’t available, and the channels available are strewn across several pages. Did you know that you can follow/friend Larissa, Geoff, Marinel and me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn? You would have if you’d visited the Buzz Bin’s About page. But that still won’t get you to Geoff’s podcast or events we host, like Blog Potomac. We have work to do, too.

Viget Labs got this spot on with their recent website makeover. Staff profiles feature their latest tweets along with links to their latest blog posts and personal blogs - not just links to individual social network accounts.

Viget also nailed multiple blog management. The group offers four distinct blogs, one for each of Viget’s “labs” (strategy, design, development and marketing), all of which are re-capped on a fifth (and founding) company blog - The Four Labs Blog.

Each blog has unique content, bloggers, and aesthetics, and attracts visitors independently of one another. To keep it together, the blogs are integrated through 1) the company blog and 2) each other - in a consistent fashion.

For example, from VigetEngage, the firm’s online marketing blog, you can access a menu of other blogs through icons in the top right corner (see image at left). It’s the same on every blog - graceful flow, great design.

In case you need the case, re-organizing digital properties is smart for several reasons:

• It’s Alive! Getting your assets in one place will force your team to keep fresh content on the table. Stagnant content should be revived or archived.
• It Multiplies! However you index your digital offerings, the catalog of content will make you want more, and ultimately encourage the addition of more corporate and staff assets.
• It’s All In One Place! One-stop shopping is good for journalists, potential clients/partners/employees and others - and that’s good for business.
• It’s Searchilicious! Start syncing your content and watch the machine work it’s Pacman magic. You’ll find that stronger assets will help deliver additional hits to other offerings through increased web traffic, downloads, blog hits and more. The rising tide lifts all boats.

A few cautionary words in closing, inspired by a frank remark by Viget Lab’s newest employee, Ryan Moede (Digital Media Strategist and VigetEngage blogger): don’t waste you’re time arranging and re-arranging the puzzle if you’re going to half-ass it, or if you have weak content. You won’t master the jigsaw without the right pieces in play.

Regulators, mount up.