Is the Answer Disclosure or Context?

Another follow-up—this one to a post on compensating Mommy bloggers that I recently wrote for Reaching Women Daily. In that post, I argued for disclosure of any compensated blog post and suggested some guidelines for marketers who want to reach out to the vast blogosphere of mommy bloggers. (If you’re not aware of the vast network of connected moms or are looking for data, you might find this recent report by Razorfish and Café Mom useful.)

So I was interested in today’s 3-minute Ad Age video, an interview with one of the founders of BlogHer.com. According to the interview, they have a different approach to disclosure. It’s not on a post-by-post basis but requires the creation of separate blogs for compensated posts and those that are purely personal opinion. View the video here.

I searched the site (I’m not registered, but I didn’t find any parts I couldn’t enter) and I didn’t find an example of what Elisa Camahort Page describes in the video. I also couldn’t find a community rule that specified it exactly. What appears to be the newer BlogHerAds section may be the execution of the “context” policy, although what it says in the editorial policy is:

Contains editorial content that has been commissioned and paid for by a third party, and/or contains paid advertising links and/or spam. Every opinion expressed must be the true opinion of the author.

They certainly are concerned about blogger compensation; so is the FTC, which is still in the review process but intends to issue guidelines that will affect bloggers as well as other endorsers.
However, I wonder about the context issue. Thinking about how people read (or perhaps how much they often ignore), it seems to me that a disclosure policy like the one I reproduced in the post or a segregation of compensated posts still may not be enough.

If each post that had compensation (including “freebies”) associated with it had a simple disclaimer statement, wouldn’t that be better? That way it’s precisely where the content is located, not in a disclosure or an about this blog statement that might not be read.

That’s where it would be most visible and most meaningful. That would be good for readers; less good for marketers? Maybe, although in the long run, I still believe that transparency rules!

Compensating Mommy Bloggers--The Virtue of Transparency

This post was originally published in the ReachingWomenDaily blog.


As I recounted in the first post in this series, I originally became fascinated with mommy blogs by watching my daughter, a new mother at the time. I gradually became aware of their potential as marketing media, although in those early days, I was thinking mostly about their value for targeted online advertising.

I was also intrigued by the number of blogs that were busily distributing coupons.I should have realized sooner that there was more to the coupon activity than meets the eye. It began to dawn on me when I saw this press release and visited the Jessica Knows blog. Her right nav bar has clear indications that she is affiliated with various brands. She also has a clear disclosure statement.

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. This blog does accept forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions. We will and do accept and keep free products, services, travel, event tickets, and other forms of compensation from companies and organizations. The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. The owner(s) of this blog is sometimes compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for some of our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers’ own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question. This blog may contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content may not always be identified. To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org/

For several months there has been a lot of buzz about compensating bloggers (WSJ, subscription required) but most of it hasn’t focused specifically on the mommy blogosphere. Here’s a good example; this post explains the controversy surrounding Chris Brogan’s Kmart posts and links to Chris’s reply. The controversy raged for awhile even though Chris’ posts were clearly labeled as being sponsored. The mommy blogosphere is so active there are now various lists of top ten mom blogs. This one focuses on the coupon blogs. I took a look at all 10 and found the following:

• Only one had a disclosure statement and it seems word-for-word the same as the one above. It probably came from the same place. Good for these 2 bloggers!
• Most of the others give clear evidence of monetization. I’m basing that on the blogs being hosted and design and navigation suggesting the use of a professional programmer.

My sample size of 11 blogs wouldn’t pass the “representative” test, but I think the results are compelling. Mommy bloggers are being compensated in various ways and they aren’t bothering to disclose it.What should marketers do? I think it’s obvious that they should require a reasonable level of disclosure. The disclosure statement in use seems to cover the waterfront and it would make sense to require it of affiliates. Perhaps what the business is supplying to bloggers makes a difference, so I’d further suggest:

• Coupons. The mere distribution of coupons through blogs doesn’t seem to create a huge issue. Do users care where coupons come from? I don’t think so! Is there sometimes paid travel or other compensation for the couponing affiliates? It appears so, and disclosure of that would be desirable.
• Product descriptions and ratings. Full disclosure is required when products are being discussed. Consumers have come to rely heavily on peer ratings, and they want to know if the recommenders are truly peers or whether they are compensated endorsers.
• Content. Be sure to brand any content that is made available for use in the blogosphere. That protects both sides.

Wal-Mart seems to have gotten it right with their Elevenmoms blog. It’s linked to the Wal-Mart site and the bloggers and nature of their activities are disclosed. From there, it’s a matter of how well done and useful the blog is. If consumers find value, they will use it. And Wal-Mart, apparently having learned its lesson a couple of years ago, isn’t letting itself in for brand-damaging disclosures.

Transparency Rules!

Author Notes: The second post in this series can be found on RWD. Soon after this post was written the FTC began an investigation of compensated blogging.

Taking Twitter Seriously

MarketingProfs has just published a report titled Twitter Success Stories. It includes a survey of 200 Twitter users, most of whom are @MarketingProfs followers. Not surprisingly, they are using Twitter to promote their businesses, using both personal and business accounts. They use Twitter for branding and awareness (84%), networking (78%), community building (77%), brand reputation management (51%), customer service (44%), prospecting (30%) and selling (20%). They rate Twitter second only to their company blog in providing value to their business.

For those of you are wondering if/how Twitter might be useful to your business, the 11 case studies have the most value. Some are the usual suspects, about which I and many others have written; Zappos as corporate strategy, Comcast for customer service, Dell Outlet for sales. There are some less familiar names that provide food for thought. Let me highlight 2 of them.

Coffee Groundz is a Houston coffee shop that was looking for a way to stand out in a crowded market. The value it has found in Twitter started accidentally with a request from a regular customer for a breakfast wrap—he was in a hurry. From taking orders it quickly expanded into commentary on issues ranging from the local music scene to how to make good coffee at home. Managing Partner J. R. Cohen is a fan of TweetUps. Over 250 people gathered at Coffee Groundz to watch the Obama inauguration, drink coffee and eat sandwiches. A good example of community building!

Another case history comes from a familiar brand. Disney was looking for a way to promote its release of the Pinocchio DVD and Blue-ray. With the help of agency Razorfish they decided on Twitter as a channel and located Melanie Notkin of SavvyAntie.com. This website helps single professionals buy gifts for their nieces and nephews—talk about a niche site! She’s doing well at it—at the moment she has over 9,200 Twitter followers.

After watching Notkin’s work for awhile, Disney worked out a 3-week deal in which Melanie Notkin posted Tweets about the Pinocchio release. Notice of the sponsorship arrangement was posted on her blog. Neither Notkin nor Razorfish will give specific results of the promotion, but here’s a quote from a WSJ article (subscription required) on the program:

As someone without kids and who doesn’t watch much TV, Melanie’s involvement with Disney was the only way that I was made aware that Pinocchio was being made available for purchase again.— Rob Blatt.

That sounds like the target audience talking!

If you are seriously interested in incorporating Twitter into your business, you may find the $49 for this report a good investment. There are a variety of ways for businesses to useTwitter that are strategic, focused, transparent, and highly cost-effective. Check it out!

Transparency and the Media

I’m working on a post for Reaching Women Daily that includes admonitions on transparency, so Bob Collins’s retweet of an article in TechCrunch about the 104-year old British woman who Tweets caught my attention—thanks, Bob! A little exploration revealed more interesting facts.

First, this story seemed to originate with UPI, part of the traditional media establishment. They should have checked their facts more carefully.

First, does Ivy Bean, resident of the Hillside Manor in the UK, use Facebook? Not exactly. Search Facebook and you’ll see what I mean. I counted 30 or so facebook pages on the subject of this Ivy Bean (obviously there are other people with the same name, but most of the fan pages have picked up the same pic, so they’re easy to identify). This is the largest I found, the Ivy Bean Appreciation Group with 2019 members. She probably deserves the appreciation of this and other fan pages, but it’s not her page.

When you go a bit deeper into Facebook you find several pages with a message like this.

Ivy Bean is 102 years old and has been told she can no longer add anymore friends as she already has 5000 but has another 6000 requests all please join so Ivy bean can have as many friends as she wants as she is 102 thanx for support

I don’t see any Ivy Bean pages with 5000 members, so I’m guessing a prank here that other Facebook users fell for. There are a lot of people who need to get a life and the manager of Hillside Manor needs a lesson in Facebook!

Second, there are numerous blog posts that attribute the Twitter account to the Geek Squad. So I went to Twitter to find out. First thing I saw on my page is numerous people retweeting about Ivy Bean. Some were non-committal, others are calling it an unethical PR stunt. Ivy Bean does have a Twitter page, established on May 14 with 31 updates, as recently as this morning. "She" has over 12,000 Twitter followers; is following 94. I looked at a few of the people she is purportedly following—students, friends of Geek Squad members, perhaps—or just generally looking for a life??

In any event, I judge the Twitter page to be a scam. Worse, someone is perpetuating it, even after it was revealed as a farce.

The TechCrunch post says that the Geek Squad “press-released the hell out of it.” As if it was a serious event, obviously. One assumes that’s where the UPI got it, and British newspapers picked it up from there. Does no one in traditional journalism fact check any more? I just proved that it’s not difficult!

Marketers, do you want your brand associated with this kind of PR? Even little jokes can backfire. This seems to have been a serious attempt to garner press attention with false information. It also winds up making Geek Squad look like they’ve taken advantage of a 104-year old nursing home resident. I don’t consider that positive PR.

And consider the fact that it was bloggers who outed the incorrect information in the traditional press. It’s a strange world; be careful who you believe!

Guest Post: How Much Control Over Internet Content?

I'm delighted to have Ailsa Leadbetter as guest author today. She is Crossmedia Manager for vdBJ/Communicatie Groep, a Dutch media firm, and an astute observer of the European Internet scene. There seems to be both questionnable individual and governmental actions in this tale of the German Wikipedia site. Alisa wrote this on Monday, November 17 and notes that the main German Wikipedia page was still closed. It's open now. Her links all work, if you read German. I made the link to the English Wikipedia version because it tells the original story in considerable detail and gives updates as recently as today, all suggesting that the German politician learned an interesting lesson about the power of the Internet. Perhaps we should all pay attention!


Here's an interesting legal story: a German judge has closed the homepage of the German Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.de). Apparently, a German politician was not pleased with his entry in the German wikipedia and asked the courts to close the homepage. He has also filed cases against 3 authors of his entry (http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/heilmann100.html, in German, sorry).

Thanks to the fact that the German wikipedia and wikipedia.org are separate legal entities, German content is still accessible (through de.wikipedia.org). According to the Dutch article I read (http://www.marketingfacts.nl/berichten/20081116_rechter_sluit_homepage_duitse_wikipedia/), this injunction has caused the German politician in question much embarassment, probably more embarassment than the sections of his wikipedia entry that he originally objected to!

A few Dutch bloggers see a similarity to Nazi practices, specificially book burning. The injunction from the German court limits the freedom of communication, freedom of information exchange, in their opinion (and mine too, actually). Ironically, this politician was a member of the East German Stasi (secret police) before German reunification. It's a bit of a creepy tale, in that respect.

I just looked this guy up on the English Wikipedia and his entry there discusses this too. It says there that he will drop his case against Wikipedia Germany (but not against the 3 authors) but this morning when I checked the page was still closed.

Customer Experience on the Social Web

Bruce Temkin at Forrester Research is a tough, thoughtful analyst of Internet strategies, especially as they impact customer experience. Many of us have enjoyed the Customer Experience Rankings he does for Forrester for several years now. Customer experience is critical to success, but in the world of social media marketers no longer control all the elements of experience. Bruce has recently set forth a set of “management laws” to aid in our social media journey. In this podcast, about 9 ½ minutes long, he talks about those management laws. The theme is “weave social media into marketing culture and decision making.” It’s worth listening to.
What lead me to his blog and the podcast was a reference to another set of “laws,” these for customer experience. You can download his white paper from the home page of the blog. I’d like to quickly summarize the laws:

1. Every interaction creates a personal reaction. Individuals have experiences, not segments or markets. How can we make experiences relevant to the individual?

2. People are instinctively self-centered. Whether customers or employees, everyone views the world through their own perceptual filters. They care about meeting their needs, not your business is organized and operates. You have to give them ways to satisfy their needs. See #4.

3. Customer familiarity breeds alignment. Share customer knowledge with your employees so they can be effective in meeting customer needs.

4. Unengaged employees don't create engaged customers. Enough said. The real question is how to engage your employees. See #5.

5. Employees do what is measured, incented, and celebrated. One of Bruce’s posts led me to a page on Tesco’s website; Tesco is my absolute favorite CRM example. Their “steering wheel” is a powerful summary of what they measure—and they are good at measurement!

6. You can’t fake it. And many of us should take a lesson from discredited politicians and remember that you can’t hide it either.

Openness and transparency rule! And thanks to Bruce for the reminder that building trust with our employees is just as important as building trust with our customers. Building trust in both areas should be Job 1!

Who Do Marketers Trust?

In September Universal McCann released a new study of social media. This one is called “When did we start trusting strangers?”










It’s full of interesting data, including their listing of social media channels—wow, that’s a long list! (The full report is available here; there's also a presentation with additional data). Let me hit a few of the high spots for you.

A basic theme is the fact that we are all both influenced by and influencers in this new media world. I’ve written before about the importance of consumer ratings and other sources of individual, as opposed to marketer-initiated, information. The report asked what opinion sources people used (the question didn’t appear to include paying more attention to ads). Search and email from friends win hands down. Next on the list is visiting the brand’s website, which makes sense. That’s tied with IMing with a friend, though!

To me, the most provocative piece of data is “who do you trust?” It’s a long list. The report points out that the 4 top-rated sources are personal and 2 are online. WOM as the most credible source of information is not a new phenomenon—it’s always been the most trusted. What this says is that there are so many more ways for WOM to circulate now. That adds to its power to influence. On the marketer-initiated side you have to go considerably more than half way down the chart to find an occurrence. When you do, TV ads are the first, followed by magazine, newspaper, PPC and radio. The key issue is that these marketer-initiated communications are only rated as being about half as trustworthy as the personal sources that were highest rated. Marketers take note!

The next set of trusted sources start with consumer reviews in various channels, includes articles by known bloggers, as well as magazine and newspaper articles. That’s where the “strangers” come in. According to Universal McCann:

• We now trust a strangers recommendation as much as our closest friends

• We trust recommendations in social media channels more than paid-for communications

Big wow!

From the earliest studies of social communication we’ve known that many people were opinion leaders in contexts in which they had special interest and expertise. That’s still true according to these data. People both seek opinion and give opinion, and how many seek vs. give differs by product category. I’d also make a bet that the actual people who seek vs. give differ from one product category to another. I’d seek the opinion of one of my tech-savy friends before buying a computer, and I’d be happy to give him my best fashion advice for his big date. We have different areas of expertise.

What does the report recommend? It says marketers should:

• Be open, honest and transparent. If they’re not, they’ll get caught. Ask the politicians.
• Be part of the conversation. They actually advise marketers to advertise on the social media; it’s advertising that supports these free influence channels. Interesting point!
• Encourage everyone to contribute experiences and opinions.
• Reach out to what they describe as the super influencers, the new creators who blog, podcast, create videos and upload their photos. They should be considered “some of the most powerful voices in the future.”

It’s pretty clear who the public trusts—the best description is probably “people like me.” I started by asking who marketers trust. Do they trust their customers to engage with them in a reasonable and responsible way? Data to the contrary, I suggest that many marketers still do not trust their customers enough to engage in direct conversation with them!

Does the Marketing World Need a Blog Council?

Once again I owe one of my students, Amy Yen, a vote of thanks for turning up an important new web activity. A group of corporate leaders has formed The Blog Council, “dedicated to promoting best practices in corporate blogging” under the leadership of Andy Sternovitz, CEO of WOM consultancy GasPedal. The founding members are a roster of leading corporate names, many of which are already well known for the success of their blogging efforts.

With a blog that’s dedicated to exploring marketing applications of social media, in which I’ve written about blog transparency, I couldn’t be more pleased to know there’s a best practices group. I’m fortunate to contribute to a major corporate vertical blog, eBrandMarketing, while I interact with smaller businesses and non-profit organizations. In a nutshell, large corporations need a way to engage with their customers. Smaller businesses and non-profits need a way to get their message out in an environment where mass media are expensive and increasingly ineffective.

However, we all know there’s a tremendous amount of hesitance to “join the conversation”— with thanks to Joseph Jaffe whose phrase (and book) I find to perfectly capture the spirit. I don’t think it’s any more true of large or small organizations. All are wary. Many have spent years building their businesses and brands and are reluctant to open them up to new media. It’s a scary world they don’t know much about. The smaller ones and the non-profits, however, have fewer resources to devote to learning about it and in some ways they need the access even more.

So I wish the new Blog Council well. In creating an environment where they can openly and freely discuss best practices, I hope they’ll also consider how to share their expertise with a broad set of marketers who need guidance even though some of them don’t even know it yet.
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TJX, Television Viewing and Trust

I ran across a CNET post earlier in the week that recalled a recent experience. While I was paying (in cash) for a small purchase at the local TJ Maxx the checker asked me if I wanted to save money with a rewards card. I had seen a promotion for it as I entered the store and thought, “Are they nuts? Willingly give them any data? Not in this lifetime!”

And that’s pretty much the response I gave to the clerk’s question. The look on her face suggested that she was hearing that a lot, but she just replied politely that she had to ask. I apologized for snapping at her. The failings of TJX management are not her fault.

The CNET post highlighted a 60 Minutes segment from Sunday, November 25 that included the recently-completed Canadian study of the data theft. Sorry I missed it, because one of the subjects for the week’s Internet marketing class at Emerson College was data security. The TJX hack was in the class notes even though we had already talked about it several times, but I was pretty sure that Leslie Stahl had more/more recent information than I did.

So I asked the class of young professionals how many had watched 60 Minutes Sunday night and then waited for a hand to go up. And waited. Of the 15 young professionals and 1 much older one, not one of us had seen the promotion for the segment or watched the broadcast. It’s no secret that broadcast TV has its own viewership issues, but that surprised even me.

I assumed the segment might be posted somewhere, so during the break I searched. It took me less than 60 seconds to find it on the CBS News site, where it still resides as of this posting. That, too, is a commentary on the changing media scene. We all watched it together and had similar responses. The subject matter is downright scary even though we all though we knew quite a bit about the situation. For an Internet marketing class it also made the important point that identity theft is currently more common offline. Will that change as ecommerce continues to grow?

No matter whose fault they are—the retailers or the financial services providers—thefts like the TJX one do irreparable damage to customer trust. Especially when the institution at fault doesn’t notify the public in a timely fashion and seems less than forthcoming when they do notify. TJX does still have a prominent link to customer information about the data breach on their home page and on the main pages of each of their units. That mostly serves to remind many of us where we will only shop with cash, if at all.

No rewards card for me, for sure. And a sobering reminder of how hard marketers need to work to build trust in their brands and how easily it can be damaged. If you are a Jet Blue, and you have a great reservoir of good will among your customers, you can survive one bad experience, especially if the CEO is public and forthcoming and promises to fix the problem. How many of us have built that level of satisfaction and trust among our stakeholders? And what do we need to be doing to continue building trust?
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The Importance of Word-of-Mouth

Marketing Charts recently published results of a study of word-of-mouth marketing. All marketers know that word-of-mouth is powerful. The PQ Media study shows that formal word-of-mouth marketing is still miniscule compared to other marketing media. It is growing at a rapid rate, and they predict expenditures will exceed $1 billion this year.

Efforts to generate WOM are fairly recent and they have met with mixed results. I think I know why.

A firm that has achieved explosive growth with its WOM program is BzzAgent. What they do is interesting overall, but my focus is on their disclosure policy. They require that Buzz Agents disclose the fact that they are “buzzing” a product, whether it’s in person or in some medium like a blog. The requirement to disclose is absolute.

Doesn’t that limit the effectiveness of the agents? To the surprise of virtually everyone, it doesn’t. Whatever the venue, people just seem to accept the disclosure and move on to information, or product experience, or whatever it is that’s being offered. BzzAgent is much in the news, having recently established a major strategic partnership with the Interpublic Group, but I can’t find any reports of the negative consequences that would come from a revelation of non-disclosure.

Think back to the blot on the record of John Mackey and Whole Foods caused by his dishonest postings. The Wall Street Journal recently reported (subscription required) that all Whole Foods executives have been forbidden to post on any Internet forum not sponsored by the company. That’s too bad, but it’s what you get when you do something wrong and get caught at it.

What started this train of thought was the reminder a few days ago that there are sites on the Internet where you can find people willing to write for pay in Internet forums of all kinds. The ones I’ve looked at don’t seem to have a disclosure requirement. For my money, that’s a bad idea. Period.

Transparency works. Deceit does not.

Word-of-mouth works—if it is honest and transparent.

It’s really hard to hide anything in this always-on world. You will get caught. So build transparency into your social media programs. You and your brand will be better off!
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Blog Transparency

One shouldn’t believe everything they read in blogs—except mine of course! But seriously, blog posts are the product of individuals and they may or may not be factually correct, complete, or unbiased. In evaluating user generated content of any kind, I think triangulation is the best approach; if two, or better three, sources agree, then you can have some credence in the content. Do you, for example, read just one product review before making up your mind to buy or not to buy? If you need a quick read on a blog, try Nielsen BuzzMetrics new blog profile tool.

What if you are blogging or participating in some other social media? How do you build trust? The operative word today is “transparency,” but what does imply about our actions? As you might guess, user generated content and its impact on information has been an important topic among journalists. Here’s a recent post that summarizes journalistic issues nicely.

I recently became aware of guidelines posted by the Ogilvy PR group that are worth the attention of all content creators. Some are relevant to people posting in a corporate environment. Companies could use them as a foundation for their own policies. Some are also relevant to the unfettered individual blogger. We should pay careful attention to the following:

• Acknowledge and Correct Mistakes Quickly. We all make them. Acknowledge them, correct them, and move on.

• Know Thy Neighbor. To make your blog authoritative you need to know who else is blogging about similar subjects. Find out who is blogging about what on search engines like Technorati, Google Blog Search and Nielsen Blog Pulse. Ogilvy suggests introducing yourself and trying to form alliances. Good idea!

• Use a Disclaimer. Make it clear where you are coming from and what your affiliations are. Even on a personal blog, you may need to separate your personal views from the official positions of your employer. Or your employer may require it. You should check.

• Conduct Quality Assurance. This is the standard advice to all writers, and we all forget it sometimes. Make your posts focus, concise, logical and don’t forget to use spell check. To my disgust, Word’s little green lines are usually correct when identifying grammatical errors.

Ogilvy has gone further and issued guidelines for its PR people when contacting bloggers. All bloggers should read and heed to avoid being used by unscrupulous publicity seekers.

Accenture has been studying trust, especially on the Internet, for some time. A good article is “The Economic Value of Trust.” Prof. John Urban has a step-by-step approach complete with case studies. Everyone makes the point that it takes sustained effort over time to build trust. It can be destroyed with one ill-advised action.

Remember the Wal-Mart blogs and the PR company behind them? The “Wal-Marting Across America” blog purportedly recounted the journey of a couple who parked their RV in Wal-Mart parking lots to shop and take pictures of happy customers and employees. It was all a fake. Wal-Mart pulled the blog and Richard Edelman, president of the PR firm, apologized publicly. Bloggers quickly labeled them "flogs."

In this age of user generated content, if you are not truthful, someone is likely to find it out quickly. And they’ll post it on the Internet.

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