Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

“Where are all the women?”

Although this question may seem like something you’d hear at an unsuccessful frat party and not the inspiration of  one of the most influential online platforms today, it was this important media meme of the early ‘00s that led three women bloggers to start the now immensely popular BlogHer Conference in 2005. A year later, the conference’s primary success led Elisa Camahort Page, along with co-creators Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone, to expand by founding the BlogHer.com publishing network. Now credited with 76,000 registered users and 80 contributing editors, the community receives more than 21 million unique visitors each month and syndicates content across the web, from Yahoo! to BravoTV.com.

On Monday, Co-Creator Page sat down with SocialMediopolis’ hosts Michael Crosson and Chicke Fitzgerald on BlogTalkRadio to discuss some of the factors that make BlogHer so darn successful. Here’s a recap:

Funding:

After bootstrapping the growing community for 18 months, the “three girls with credit cards” decided it was time to seek outside funding. Instead of building the space and then trying to figure out how to pay for it, Page said, the blogging platform began with  a business plan that paid for itself. When securing funding, Page, Des Jardins and Stone were pitching more than just an idea; they had a plan that was working. Ultimately, BlogHer has raised $3.5 million from Venrock, the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family, the Peacock Fund and Azure Capital Partners, and expects to be profitable for the first time this year.

Advertising:

With more than 21 million unique visitors each month, it is no wonder BlogHer is a hotbed for advertisers. Besides its sheer reach, Page added, BlogHer offers a unique, integrated value proposition to brands. Web 2.0 has changed customer expectations; we no longer passively consumer, but rather actively participate with brands. Through the online community, brands have the opportunity to have more intimate conversations with targeted users, while the live events (BlogHer Conference, BlogHer Food, etc) provide broad exposure that advertisers love so much.

Community:

Despite the desire to economically empower fellow women bloggers, one of their biggest concerns, said Page, was how to ensure the quality and credibility of the network as a legitimate source of information. BlogHer was created, in part, to foster civil debate among women, and users should feel safe engaging in a conversation about even the most controversial of topics. To achieve this, Page said the community guidelines were established from day one. Controversial subject matter, regardless of which end of the political/social spectrum it should fall, can be discussed freely, without the threat of epithets or hate speech.  Page noted that It is absolutely necessary to apply the community guidelines fairly and consistently to create the safe community space.

Another issue Page touched on was the recent FTC disclosure guidelines, adding that this recent policy change was the first step in recognizing blogging as a legitimate media channel. Reader expectations differ when consuming traditional media channels and blogs; there isn’t that automatic assumption that bloggers may be receiving “material endorsement” (as the literature specifies) for their posts. For this reason, Page said, disclosure is essential to maintain the authentic editorial stream the community expects.

I didn’t notice this until about halfway through the Super Bowl when Gary Vaynerchuk pointed it out. It seemed despite the millions of dollars big brands spent on Super Bowl ads this year, not one (at least that I saw) specifically directed people to their Facebook pages. Maybe it’s because my “day job” is now mostly consumed by social media, but this strikes me as incredibly obtuse. And possibly downright irresponsible on the part of their agencies.

At some point someone should’ve mentioned to Dennys, “Hey, you know you could probably spike your fan count by a couple MILLION in one night. Sound good?” That they didn’t either means a) nobody brought it up, or b) it was shot down by someone with no appreciation of the impact of such things. Or maybe they just don’t care about Facebook. I think a big factor in this is that “traditional” agencies still haven’t the first clue how to advise their clients on social media. This even includes a lot of digital agencies that only want to sell a client a website.

Throughout the game, I was reminded of when I first got into this gig. Around 1998 I built a website for a prominent local real estate agency in my town of Marietta, Ohio. At the time, I wasn’t doing anything very advanced, and the realty listings were powered by a third-party Perl script. I think I got a couple grand from the whole shebang, but it was 10 times better than what I was replacing.

Once the site launched, I made a lot of recommendations to them about how to promote the site. I pitched the usual stuff, but what I really hammered on was that they were insane if they didn’t put their web address on every single “for sale” sign on every property they had listed. They’d nod and acknowledge it was a good idea, but they never ever did it. I left Ohio in 2006, but my gut says they probably still haven’t taken my advice.

And here we are in 2010, the future, for pete’s sake, and clients are still compartmentalizing their media. This is our website and this is our broadcast ad, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Stunning.

It should be pointed out (as was pointed out to me), a couple spots included Facebook and/or Twitter logos. That’s great, but they were small and in the last tenth of a second of the commercial. Notice all Sears ads now have social media logos? WTF? Do you expect people to touch their television screen and go to your Facebook page?

What Denny’s (and others) should have done was had a clear social media call to action. Yes, we’re doing free breakfasts, but you have to become a fan on Facebook to get it. Or, tack on something extra, like become a fan and get a free cappuccino to go with that free breakfast. As of this writing, the Denny’s Facebook fan page only has 25,000 fans. In my experience with Facebook-based promotions (where Engauge helped take a brand from 900 fans to 100,000+), I’m sure they could’ve multiplied that by a factor of ten or more tonight, easy.

Not sure when these agencies (or brands) will get with the program. As much as Facebook makes me roll my eyes sometimes, I cannot deny it’s become a force to be reckoned with. And it won’t be long before no brand can afford to leave it out of their strategy.

That said, as long as there are agencies bungling through this, firms like Engauge will continue to show them up.

Over the past few months, I’ve been using FourSquare more regularly. FourSquare is a social networking service/game that you can use to track your whereabouts. It is typically accessed via an app on a mobile smartphone (Droid, BlackBerry or iPhone). The idea is that you earn points each time you arrive at a location and “check-in.” You earn more points for new places that you discover/visit vs. returning to your usual spots. But the points are virtual — they’re only a valuable way to tell who gets out who doesn’t. From my point of view, FourSquare is the perfect global economic stimulus solution — it encourages users to spend time exploring new places and money. What government or marketer wouldn’t love this thing?!

Well over the weekend, FourSquare sent me an alert that one my friends was at the Nike Factory Store, a nearby discount outlet. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to send him a note and ask him if there are any good deals on Nike running gear (I think that their Dri-FIT products are the ultimate but that’s a topic for another blog). While I could have called or sent him an email, I wanted to send him a text and ask but that feature wasn’t available. I swear that I looked EVERYWHERE and came up empty handed.

While FourSquare is a great tool that allows you to keep up with your friends, it is missing a texting feature that allows you to quickly “chat” with them. Text messaging is the preferred mode to communicate, especially when you’re mobile (source). If it was there, I would have another reason to get out and stimulate the economy.

This weekend I attended SoCon10, the fourth annual Social Media “Unconference” held at Kennesaw State University. This was my first time at SoCon and I had a great time (definitely will be back again).

I had the pleasure of attending the conference along with my colleague Kathlene Hestir. The conference was broken into two sections on Saturday, two keynote speakers in the morning and a diverse selection of breakout sessions in the afternoon. Below are a few highlights from the keynote speakers.

The first keynote speaker at the conference was Carol Kruse, VP of Global Interactive Marketing at The Coca-Cola Company, and she presented on Coke’s “Fans First” approach in social communities. She talked at length on how the Coca-Cola Facebook Fan Page came to be and how they are managing the page. Coke’s approach? It’s the fans page, not theirs. According to Kruse, 70% of the content is generated by fan participation and 30% of the content is from Coke participation. I was pleasantly surprised by this as I think most brands take the opposite view of how to manage their fan page. Toward the end of the presentation, Kruse summarized some key lessons learned in social media:

• Social media is a tactic & should always be in support of brand objectives
• Platforms change frequently & can be disruptive
• Keep it simple, fewer objectives is better
• Measure along the way
• “Viral” shouldn’t BE your strategy – just part of a comprehensive plan
• Clear the Legal hurdles first - this is new for everyone so legitimate questions arise around every corner
• Always work with pros – there is no “sticking your toe in the water”
• Each new community is an entirely new market and should be treated as much

Dan Siroker, former Deputy New Media Director, Obama Presidential Transition and Director of Analytics for Obama’s Presidential Campaign was the second keynote speaker. He spoke about how his New Media team used data to win the Presidential Election. As a research geek, I’m always excited to see how data can transform the way we do things. Siroker discussed how his team used multivariate testing during the campaign that resulted in raising over half a billion dollars. By testing different elements within the splash page of Barrack Obama’s website, Siroker and his team were able to optimize the page which increased email signups and campaign donations. The following summarize the lessons that were learned during the campaign:

• Define Quantifiable Success Metrics
• Question Assumptions
• Segment & Target Your Audience
• Take advantage of circumstances
• Always be Optimizing

Below are some links to additional blog posts recapping the event:

• SoCon10: The Social Media “Unconference” – Stacy Williams
• SoCon10: Part of the Crowd – Steve Burns
• An Unconference: Social Media Business Plans and Revenue Models – Christina Stallings

UPDATE: I recently spoke with Joel @Rapleaf and he clarified that the data that Rapleaf collects is not used to deny individuals credit. Instead the information is used by the marketing departments to target potential customers (source).

While Twitter is free social media tool, there’s a price that one pays for tweeting. For example, there are plenty of good incidents caused by an embarrassing celebrity tweet (source). Aside from Hollywood celebrities, we’ve also had a local incident where a VP at the Atlanta PR firm Ketchum mistakenly used Twitter to exclaim that he “would die” if he had to live in Memphis while visiting his client, FedEx (source). This was a problem since Memphis is where FedEx is headquartered. Talk about a real Homer Simpson “Doh!” moment.

Until now, the price of tweeting was simply facing temporary ridicule and a small boo-boo to your online reputation. But that’s all changed now that data-mining firm Rapleaf announced that they are using data from Twitter to determine if you’re credit worthy collect demographics data in the public domain that’s exposed through social networking sites. According to an article in Fortune Magazine (source), the people that you “hang out” with can be used to determine if you’ll pay your bill on time (THE STRICKEN SENTENCE IS NOT TRUE!). As a technologist, I recognize that some analytics tools can also provide this extra level of information. For example, Pinch Media/Flurry can send demographics information from the Facebook application to your iPhone application. This simply add an extra dimension to data that you’re already collecting about the behavior of your mobile app users. Of course, this feels both cool and a bit creepy.

As a regular user of Twitter and Facebook, I’m less worried about what I say because I’m well aware that my statements are in the public domain. But, I’m reconsidering who I’m planning to follow or be-friend online. As a social networking contributor, you should consider whether you’re willing to allow a social networking site to expose that information to a search engine, like Google.

I guess that the quip “Be slow in choosing your friends” rings true.