23 Dec 2009
My last post revisited the “markets are conversations” principal. I proposed that companies/brands have been joining conversations in their industry, but selling themselves short if not working towards starting them. As a framework to facilitate this discussion, addressing the progression and value of brands starting conversations, see the Conversation Maturity Model below: From a social media strategy perspective, you should find this model fits well as part of, or along side, Forrester’s POST (People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology) approach or even Room 214′s PPLE Social Media Framework. The Value of Starting Conversations To keep this blog post digestible, I’ll summarize the model by saying the ultimate value of starting conversations is in building and sustaining your brand as a leader. Leadership, like almost everything that’s enabled your company’s success, must be earned. Each (maturity) level within the pyramid model is representative of where your brand may be in any given conversation about…
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22 Dec 2009
Social media experts are commonly asked where the market is going, or, “what do you believe the future of social media is?” I notice most offering answers are quick to disclaim “we are all learning, and nobody is really an expert” – then reasonably expound upon topics such as the integration of customer relationship management (CRM) within social media, online monitoring tools, Facebook, ROI models, etc. All worthy topics of discussion, but as one who will be humbly referring to himself as an expert among many, the topic I’m bringing to your attention now is that ofbrands starting conversations. “That’s it,” you say? “What’s so meaningful about that? Isn’t that what they are already doing?” Well, I’d say most are not. There is certainly a lot of listening going on – but many companies engaging in conversations about their brand are predominantly reacting, or at best, joining conversations (not starting them). Cluetrain…
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19 Nov 2009
As WOMMA 2009 kicked off today, I wanted to share some notes from the last session I found extremely interesting. As one who runs a social media agency, I am of course completely captivated by a session dedicated to giving insight as to what big brands are thinking when choosing to work with agencies in this space. The panel discussion included three individuals with an incredible amount of online and offline marketing experience. Each is a recognized leader within their own organization, and was kind enough to share some candid thoughts regarding their opinions on working with agencies. The background and highlights from each participant’s discussion is as follows: Steve Knox, CEO, Procter & Gamble Tremor: When I first met members from the Tremor team last year at WOMMA, I was surprised to hear that Procter & Gamble was already aggressively working with an agency to engage in WOM and social…
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23 Oct 2009
Room 214 recently did a major overhaul of all of the Travel Channel’s Facebook pages. We added a poll app, Youtube functionality, a live Twitter stream, and all sorts of great new tools. However, there was one area that we could still improve upon. After taking a look at the profile images on all seven of the Travel Channel Facebook pages, I realized that there was a way for us to improve the look and feel of our pages. Take a look at a few of the profile images that were displayed at the time: There were a few issues with each profile image: The formatting was inconsistent. The use of Travel Channel’s logo and brand style was inconsistent. There was room for the images to look cleaner and more official. Why is the profile image so important? A profile image is the most used part of any Facebook page. It is…
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