Social Episodes

This is an article I wrote for PointZero Magazine.  If you have a moment check it out here.  It’s a new magazine that offers a wealth of knowledge on the social media space.

In the last 18 months, Social Media Marketing has generated a lot of attention and buzz in most enterprises. From the innovative uses of social media during the US Presidential campaign of Barack Obama, to individuals creating a personal brand on blogs and microblogs, everyone seems interested in getting in on the social media hype. Mainstream media continues to point to unprecedented adoption rates of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn among others, leaving enterprises to move beyond the question of whether or not to adopt social media as part of the marketing mix, and into how they should adopt it.

Most enterprises have made attempts at dipping their toe in social media mostly by establishing a presence on what we will call the “free social web” – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.  While these social outposts are extremely important for branding and driving traffic to an enterprise’s web site or online community, they are difficult to measure and track and, most importantly, it’s difficult for the brand to own the conversations happening within the broader social web.  These sites own the explicit data (profile information, demographics data, etc) and implicit data (comments on other posts, details on connections, responses to polls, allegiance to fan pages, etc) making the information difficult or impossible to review, interpret and act on.

Leveraging and Launching Social Media
Enterprises that are at the point of expanding their social media initiatives by launching their own market facing community benefit by learning from the successes and failures of other brands. Three common mistakes Enterprises make are:

•    The “build-it-and-they-will-come” fallacy—This happens when a company focuses too single-mindedly on the tools and forgets to consider the marketing programs that are driving membership and participation in their community.  Too many brands believe once the community is launched it will result with hundreds of thousands of members out of the gate.  The truth is the launch of a community should go hand-in-hand with a well though marketing program and activities to drive membership and participation.
•    The “let’s-keep-it-small-so-it-does-not-move-the needle” phenomenon— Some enterprises seem to get into a permanent state of pilot when it comes to social media marketing programs. At some point you either need to move on and scale, or decide that social media marketing is not for you and shut it down.
•    The “not-invented-here” syndrome—This can happen when a very strong community already exists, and the company tries to create a new one and lure members to their own platform. In some cases it makes more sense for that company to engage where the community already hangs out and affiliate with them instead of trying to compete with them.

Measuring ROI – It’s both important, and possible
Earlier this year Chris Brogan (President of New Marketing Labs) and I conducted research on Corporate Trends in Social Media Marketing.  We learned that most enterprises that dipped their toes into social media were planning larger, more comprehensive strategies in the second half of 2009 that involved deploying their own customer or market facing online communities.  The primary motivation of the enterprises planning these initiatives were addressing standard marketing goals including promoting brand, increasing customer engagement and driving demand generation activities.  On the flip side, the biggest concerns of the same enterprises were around ensuring their brand image is not tarnished within a community and that they can generate high levels of participation among community members. An additional concern identified in the survey was the perceived inability to track an RIO with social programs.

Measuring ROI in social media is something everyone involved in the space is trying to capture. While there are many different opinions on the subject no one has established an industry standard. One of the primary reasons behind the lack of a standard ROI definition for social media is because, as we learned in the survey, there are many different objectives for social media programs. For example, while page views may be a compelling metric for a UCG campaign, it may indicate poor performance in a peer support community.

Without standard metrics, organizations need to know whether or not social media programs are making an impact. As companies adopt and enhance social programs they need to be sure that the vendors they select to support the technology component of the social program understand the differences in business objectives companies have and have the appropriate metrics in place to track an ROI. With the right platform and tools in place, measuring ROI is easily possible.

In 2009 Awareness hosted 19 webinars featuring a wide range of marketing topics presented by a host of social media thought leaders.  These sessions grew in popularity over the course of the year, attracting thousands of viewers and featuring entertaining and thought provoking conversations.  There was a ton of value in every session and here is my list of the Top 5 Sessions of 2009 (along with some honorable mentions):

1. “End the Hype!!” A Live Panel from IMS with Jason Falls, Paul Gillin, C.C. Chapman, Chris Brogan, and Brian Solis
   

   Photo by Derek Wilmot

   What could top a rock-star panel streamed live from the floor of the Inbound Marketing Summit at Gillette Stadium? This session was particularly exciting for me for a couple of reasons.  First, it was live streamed, which adds a completely new dimension (as well as a new level of stress) to a traditional webinar.  Not only does it mean people tuning in are watching you instead of a set of PowerPoint slides, but it also means there are a ton of technological hurdles you need to consider.  Luckily, Matthew Mamet and the video gurus at Visible Gains stepped up and handled the technology component.  Second, it featured an all-star panel of individuals that I have a lot of respect for in the social media space: Jason Falls, Paul Gillin, C.C. Chapman, Chris Brogan, and Brian Solis.  As the host, it put a ton of pressure on me to ask good questions, facilitate good conversations and to make sure I give each presenter enough air time.  In the end, we had a great conversation, shared some interesting case studies and had a deep discussion on metrics and social media ROI.

   A link to the live session is here

2. Scott Monty, Ford’s Social Media Strategy, From Zero to 60
   I learned more from Scott Monty in 45 minutes than some people I talk to for hours.  It’s rare for a company the size of Ford to provide such a detailed look inside their social media strategy.  Paraphrasing Woody Allen, where he said ”90% of life is just showing up,” Scott Monty, Head of Social Media at Ford Motor Company shared with us how Ford subscribes to the Woody Allen philosophy of social media which is “90% of social media is just showing up.” Its about being where people expect you to be.  Showing up is easy, its the other part that is hard and is often where the majority of corporations fail. Well Ford is certainly doing more than just showing up. With Scott to guide them, the corporation that has experienced its share of challenges,  is now seeing significant success in their social media efforts through their many campaigns. Proof of this success could possibly be attributed to the company’s recently posted profits of nearly $1 billion in its third quarter.Here is a link to the slides and recording (written by Christine Major)
3. Larry Weber, “Marketing on the Social Web”
   I have probably seen Larry Weber speak 5 or 6 times and I have read all his books (”The Provocateur”, “Marketing to the Social Web‘ and most recently, “Sticks & Stones“).  I continue to be amazed at how much I learn from him and I continue to be a fan of how he thinks.  This session set a couple of records for Awareness sessions.  First is was the session with the highest pre-registration – over 3000 people signed up to tune in.  Second, it’s our most downloaded set of slides on slideshare (currently has 11,500 views, 118 favorites and 42 embeds).  Finally, this was one of our most active conversations on Twitter.  We received hundreds of comments and questions throughout the session leaving me scrambling to keep up.  I said this on the call and I’ll say it again, if you haven’t read “Marketing to the Social Web” pick it up, its a great read from a guy with a ton of insight on the space.

   View the slides from Larry’s Session here

4. Mitch Joel, “Six Pixels of Separation”
   I had the chance to read Mitch’s book, “Six Pixels of Separation“, the weekend prior to the webinar and had tons of my own questions I wanted to ask.  My only disappointment was that because we received so many questions from listeners on Twitter I never had the chance to get to any of my questions.  Mitch spent time discussing how the world of new media and how to market with a brand-new perspective that is driven by compelling results. The smarter entrepreneurs and top executives are leveraging digital channels to get their voice “out there”-connecting with others, becoming better community citizens, and, ultimately, making strategic business moves that are increasing revenue, Awareness, and overall success in the marketplace-without the support of traditional mass media.

   Click here to view the recording of the session

5. (Tie) Jason Falls, “My Agency Doesn’t Get Social Media… Who Does?” & C.C. Chapman, “Passion is Contagious”
   Both of these sessions we great because, first, the content rocked.  They weren’t the typical sessions talking about dialog, transparency, and general social media B.S. , they both talked about actually things you can use in your business and gave great advice.  Second, neither session needed a deck, etc.  We could have had a discussion for 45 minutes without relying on decks.  Both C.C. and Jason are expert presenters who have great experiences and backgrounds, but more important is they are great guys who are very easy to talk with.Jason led a discussion called “My Agency Doesn’t Get Social Media… who does???“  and focused on the successes and failures of social media within marketing agencies. He talked about the right questions to ask agencies as you engage them to define and manage your social media strategy and, most importantly, what to look for as you select an agency.

   I have known C.C. Chapman for a couple of years.   We first met when we were both speakers at the New Marketing Summit (now the Inbound Marketing Summit).  Actually, I think our first “in person” meeting was just before I  interviewed him for New Marketing T.V. What’s really interesting is that while we both graduated from Bentley University (granted it was at different times – C.C. is WAY older than me ) and shared several friends (shout out to @bostonsarah), we first connected through social media. It’s true, social media actually works!  The  first time we actually “spoke” was months before we met in person when we began chatting on Twitter and Facebook.  Since our first meeting at NMS I have seen him speak 5 or 6 times and I always learn something new from him.  This session was no exception.

   (Photo Credit: Jason Falls)

Honorable Mentions:

1. Chris Brogan, “Trust Agents“
   This will go down as the webinar that almost wasn’t.   Our original session was going to be a traditional webinar delivered by Chris focusing on his new book, “Trust Agents“.  Unfortunately, there were some technical issues and we were forced to cancel the session (want the detailed story, click here).  The good news is we were able to coordinate a live session with Chris few weeks later.   The session streamed live from the Visible Gains offices in Waltham.  It’s always great chatting with Chris and this session was no exception. He has some great case studies and really interesting insights on how to use social media as part of your marketing mix and how to grow vibrant communities.  Check out the session here.
2. Brian Solis, Socializing your Corporate Brand
   Brian’s session focused on “Socializing your Corporate Brand”. I had not had the chance to meet Brian prior to the session but had read his book “Putting the Public back in Public Relations” and have seen him speak on a couple of occasions. What I like most about this discussion was his use of actual, real-life, tactical examples that marketers can use today to start communicating in the social web. The session didn’t focus on theory and spent time addressing the tactical questions of the audience which made for an excellent session.  Check out the session here.
3. Adam Broitman, Innovative Marketing
   Adam Broitman is founder and ringleader at Circ.us. I met Adam for the first time at New Marketing Summit (now the Inbound Marketing Summit) when we sat down for an interview on the state of new marketing (click here to view it). Adam has great insight into the agency world (spending some time at Digitas, Morpheus and Crayon) and has a very unique (some may say “innovative”) way of thinking about marketing and social media. He’s also a lot of fun to chat with and, as you we see in the recording, he’s both an entertaining and thought provoking speaker.
4. Rachel Happe, “The Community Maturity Model”
   Rachel Happe and Jim Storer of The Community Roundtable along with Adam Zawel, XPC Community Facilitator at Palladium Group presented “The Community Maturity Model.”  During the webinar, Rachel brought us through the different phases of The Community Maturity Model while Adam shared his first-hand experiences building and managing Palladium Group’s community.  According to Rachel, community is about the relationships between the people in your community and not just a content-rich website (the “audience” Brogan referred to). It is these relationships that drive engagement, passion and long term relationships. Reminds me of Ford Motor Company and their success in using social media to drive that passion for its vehicles.

We have some great speakers already lined up for 2010!  Check out the latest and greatest schedule at our website.  Got ideas for a speaker or topic?  DM me @bostonmike or email me mike.lewis(at)awarenessnetworks.com

This was a very exciting week at Awareness. To kick off the week we welcomed two new members to the sales team – Jocie Jandovitz and Phil Barry.  Both come to Awareness with deep experience in the software space and a passion for how social media can help companies improve marketing effectiveness.  They are great fits for the team and I am looking forward to working with them throughout 2010.

The changes don’t stop there.  Today we officially move to our new digs in Burlington, MA (which happens to be my hometown).  This is particularly exciting for me because not only is this where I grew up but it’s also where I currently live.  It’s a big win for me personally because my commute will go from about 45 minutes each way to 5 minutes.  My friend and co-worker Steve Tremblay (who also lives in Burlington) said it best: “Everyday I’ll get an hour and a half of my life back“.   The Burlington location is ideal for us because it’s larger, centrally located and is less than an hour from downtown Boston.  The space itself is also terrific – tons of room for new employees, beautiful conference rooms, an unconventional floor plan, very cool cubes, a view of the Boston skyline and space for the marketing team to host live streaming video sessions (stay tuned, details on this will follow shortly).

While we leave behind some great memories in the Waltham office we are looking forward to creating new memories in Burlington.

These are exciting times for Awareness!!!  Stayed tuned for more exciting announcements coming very, very soon!

Who knew that talking to a crowd of Yankees fans could be so much fun?  Last week I led a discussion at Web 2.0 in New York titled “The Elephant in the Room: Social Media ROI”.  After catching some flak from the locals on being a die hard Red Sox fan we got down to business and discussed ROI.  During the talk I walked through a case for ROI and presented some case studies from companies I have worked with in the past.  The conversation sparked some interesting questions, some debates and a lot of interesting dialog.  I’m hoping to have a recording up in a few days (stay tuned)… The slides from the presentation are below, hope you enjoy!

Mitch Joel, Six Pixels of Separation

Is it important to be connected? Mitch Joel, Author of Six Pixels of Separation and President of TwistImage believes we no longer live in a world of six degrees of separation. In fact, we’re now down to only six pixels of separation, which changes everything we know about doing business.

Last week we had the chance to sit down for a session with Mitch who discussed how the world of new media and how to market with a brand-new perspective that is driven by compelling results. The smarter entrepreneurs and top executives are leveraging digital channels to get their voice “out there”-connecting with others, becoming better community citizens, and, ultimately, making strategic business moves that are increasing revenue, awareness, and overall success in the marketplace-without the support of traditional mass media.

It’s was great chatting with Mitch and I, personally, learned a ton during this session.  He has great insight and case studies and has a unique way of simplifying social media marketing in a way the makes it easy to understand the benefits as well as how to get started.  We talked a little bit about the future of social media, how to build vibrant online communities and how marketers can be successful using social media.  The recording is below, I hope you enjoy it.

The conversation on Twitter was also terrific.  Here are my top 10 observations from some of the people joining the conversation on Twitter:

1. @JayFleischman: 48% of leisure time is spent online
2. @elysa every single day 20% of ALL searches on Google are searches that have NEVER been done before #awarenessinc
3. @MVMNT_Mike: If you want to enter social media, do something now! Don’t worry about mistakes, learn along the way #awarenessinc
4. @REMdreamtime: strategy component is sorely missing from digital agencies via @mitchjoel #awarenessinc
5. @NunesThompson: Always ask WHY! Say why you’re on #SM, not the fact that you’re on it. #awarenessinc
6. @AprilMPhillips: “It’s more about your attitude and not about your age.” // @mitchjoel on social media // So true! #awarenessinc
7. @elysa: 6 things you can do RIGHT now: 1)acceptance 2)digital augments not instead of traditional marketing #awarenessinc (cont) 3)every opt is chance to build/share/grow 4)open up and share more 5)it’s about your attitude not your age #awarenessinc
8. @garyasanchez: brands need to create online strategy: why are they on twitter rather than just being on twitter – build community! #awarenessinc
9. @RonArden: #awarenessinc The shiny new objects are just a bunch of tools. You need to decide what to do with these tools to make them useful.
10. @tamadear: Why are peer reviews trusted more? Because we think our peers’ motivation is closer to our own. #awarenessinc

I have to admit, at first I was hesitant about participating in this.  I have never been into fashion.  In fact, I’ve never really gone clothes shopping before.  I mean, I have obviously purchased clothing in the past but for the most part those purchase were impulsive.  If I see something I like I buy it.  If it looks comfortable and relaxed chances are I’ll wear it.  The one criticism I typically receive is I buy clothes multiple sizes too big.  I hate wearing things that are tight… I hate being uncomfortable.

This is important because a few weeks ago I was asked by my good friend Christine Major if I’d be interested in getting a “make over”.  She told me I’d be perfect for an event called “Making over the Men of Social Media“.  I’m still not sure if being told that “I would be perfect for a make over” is a good thing or a bad thing, but I digress…  Frankly, I didn’t think I needed a makeover.  I’d classify my look as “casual” – jeans, sweatshirt, birkenstocks – the kind of style that would make Bill Belichick jealous.  However, after consulting with my wife, I decided it may not be a bad idea to take @AskEmmi up on her offer and go through with the makeover.

My initial vision of the make-over was that I would be taken to some high-end store and attacked by the guys from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and would involve getting my nails done, body waxing, eye brow trimming and all of those “stereo-typical” things associated with make-over’s.  To my surprise, this was all about shopping.  With credit card in hand I met up with Emmi on a beautiful Saturday afternoon on Newbury Street in Boston where we went shopping at stores like Frank Stella and Lord & Taylor.  Here is the video of my personal shopping experience which was shown at the show that took place earlier this week.

I ended up getting some great stuff that complimented my style at Frank Stella’s in Boston.  The event was great and I should have video of that soon as well!  It was especially great to hang out with the other models (Jeff Glasson, C.C. Chapman, Stuart Foster, Adam Zand, and Mike Schneider) in the “green room”.  Thanks @AskEmmi!

A couple of weeks back we conducted a live, streaming session with Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs and Co-Author of Trust Agents with Julien Smith.  It’s always great chatting with Chris and this session was no exception.  He has some great case studies and really interesting insights on how to use social media as part of your marketing mix and how to grow vibrant communities.

Below is the link to the session and I hope you enjoy it.

Trust Agents with Chris Brogan

A special thanks to Matthew Mamet and our friends at PermissionTV for helping to bring this session together on short notice!  As you view the highlights of the session notice that the video has been edited to focus on the areas that are most interesting to the viewer.  This is both cool and beneficial as is makes for an awesome viewer experience.  If you are looking for software to support streaming video, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to check them out.

Last week I hosted a webinar featuring Brian Solis called “Socializing your Corporate Brand”.  I had not had the chance to meet Brian prior to last week but had read his book “Putting the Public back in Public Relations” and have seen him speak on a couple of occasions.  What I like most about Brian’s talk was his use of actual, real-life, tactical examples that marketers can use today to start communicating in the social web. The session didn’t focus on theory and spent time addressing the tactical questions of the audience which made for an excellent session.  Here are some of the highlights I took away from our conversation:

1. “Social media is about sociology, NOT technology”
2. Transparency alone isn’t sufficient on the social web.  You need to be authentic, believable, and passionate.
3. Have you seen the conversation prism yet?
4. It’s the quality of the people that you align with, not the numbers & quantity.
5. Rules that govern social media are same as rule social interaction but one: more gets said online than face to face.
6. Any conversation that takes place on the social web will map directly to a department in your company (and it’s not only marketing)
7. Marketers need to evolve and “Uncampaign”. Contribute more than you consume.
8. Invest in the exchange, it’s about conversation.  Listen then engage.
9. Most effective use of social media is when you can tie it to a business goal.
10. Haven’t you heard? Everyone is a social media expert! Its digital Darwinism, not everyone is going to make it.

Below is the recording of the session with Brian.

I had an interesting conversation with Dave Carter yesterday that got me thinking (scary, I know).  Dave was telling me how he’s getting kind of frustrated with the volume of tweets from some of the “Twitterati” who share the seemingly “mundane” details of their lives, like waiting in line at Starbucks, getting their car cleaned, etc.  I have been hearing this complaint a lot lately and frankly, I’m not sure why.

No question, it can’t be denied that there is a ton of noise on Twitter and it can be difficult to navigate.   I like some of the noise and some of it I don’t.  While agree with the point about the amount of noise, I personally don’t find it annoying because I am in control of what I pay attention to.  I can choose who and what I listen to and selectively tune out things I don’t care about.

In some ways I look at it like the radio.  For example, I am a huge fan of Howard Stern.  I listen to him every morning on the commute to the office and every night on my way home.  In fact, I don’t think I have changed the station from Howard 100 in the last 6 months.  That said, I don’t agree with or like everything Howard has to say.  Some of the segments about his personal life (walking his dog, going to his parents house on the weekends, etc) I find really boring.  Some guests are just terrible and some topics are just beat to death by his crew.  That said, by and large I love what he talks about.  In the case of Howard, I am willing to live with the things I don’t like because the majority of his content is great.  When things get boring, I have the option of changing the station.  If the majority of his content ever became unbearable for me, I also have the option of never tuning in again.  Point is, like on Twitter, I always have the option of selectively ignoring what I’m not interested in.

On Twitter you don’t have to like everything, or listen to everything, the people you are following have to say.  You can follow individuals and use tools like TweetDeck to select what you read and what you want to pay attention to.  If you find yourself uninterested in a majority of some one’s content you always have the ability to “change the channel” or “unfollow” them.  The control you have over what you listen to is one of the reasons I am a fan of Twitter, and social media in general.

The long and short of it is, it’s easy to listen to the content or individuals you find interesting and selectively ignore the rest.

photo credit: niznoz

It’s right there in black & white for the world to see.  I can’t deny that I made a mistake.

Yesterday afternoon we sent out an email promoting today’s webinar featuring Brian Solis.  The message went through several revisions and we missed a typo that was right there in the headline.  A mistake that we simply didn’t catch.  The title of Brian’s talk today is “Socializing your Corporate Brand”.  Our email referred to it as “Socializing your Corporate Crand“.  What can I say.  Honest mistake that slipped through the cracks.  My bad.

What I find funniest about the mistake is people’s reaction to it.  We got a bunch of messages following what I will call the “typo email” and the responses seem to fall into three buckets:

1. “No Comment”

The overwhelming majority of responses sounded something like this.  “This sounds like an awesome session.  Thanks for putting together such a great webinar schedule!  Keep me posted on additional sessions you add.”  Of all the responses we received yesterday, this was by far the most common.  To the people in this camp, rest assured our sessions are not only continuing but we have some excellent guests lined up for the coming months (beyond what is currently listed on the site)…  Stay tuned!

2. “Heads Up”

These responses were generally from people letting us know something was up in a friendly way.  For example, Patrick Rafter wrote back with “Hey Mike, looks like you have a typo in the first line.  That said, the event looks great.  Can’t wait to attend!“.  It seems the people in this bucket realized it was a mistake and figured they would bring it up to make sure we were aware.  This is likely the bucket I would fall into as I have made mistakes before and realize that, while undesirable, these things happen.

3. “Holier Than Thou”

As my mom would say “there are always a few in every group“.  To be clear, we only had a handful of responses that fell into this category. This small group of “holier than thou” people, apparently, have never made a mistake in their lives and they take great pride in developing sarcastic responses like “What the heck is a ‘Crand’?  You should proofread your emails. Very unprofessional.” or “With such a glaring typo I can’t image I would get value out of one of your sessions“.

Really?  Just so I understand, your reaction to having one letter wrong in a message is to conclude that Brian (who had noting to do with the mistake) will provide no value during his session?  To all these people all I can do is first, express our apologies for the mistake and second, respectively ask that you come off your marketing high horse and come back to reality.  Mistakes happen people.