Cisco Engages B2B Customers in Idea Generation

In my early days writing about the web, I remember my editor saying that I just had to read a book entitled Net Ready that focused on Cisco Systems’ thoughtful use of the web, especially connecting its customers to provide support to one another. That was easily a decade ago but the title well describes Cisco’s continuing innovation of Internet marketing programs.


Cisco recently launched a promotion for its WebEx conferencing system that makes good use of both social media and cause-related marketing. Called Pass the Ball, it asks people to submit ideas that can help change the world and to rate the ideas of others. Each time an idea is submitted or rated, Cisco makes a donation to Teachers without Borders.

I count 10 categories of ideas ranging from Education/Innovation with 117 ideas currently to Sports/Entertainment with 26. (What does it say about their target audience that Arts/Culture has more ideas than Sports at 36? Some of the other categories have a predictably high level of activity, but that comparison is fascinating!)

They are working the promo aggressively with activity on Facebook and Twitter, especially. The Twitter “ad” on this page appears to be a live feed instead of a “safe” static capture as is sometimes done.

In looking for information, I ran across their recent Connected Life campaign. It had a different scope (it didn’t seem to focus on a specific brand, but instead on their corporate theme) and it attracted over 600 entries from a selected set of countries. I don’t know what their success metrics are, but 600 entries looks pretty good to me. The implication is that Cisco knows how to involve and engage their totally B2B audience, and it seems reasonable to assume this benefits their brands like WebEx.

It also suggests another issue. I read somewhere recently that one social media practitioner disputed the idea that there are social media programs/campaigns (I use the 2 terms interchangeably). The argument was that social media involvement is an ongoing process, not a campaign with a beginning and end. The Cisco programs seem to illustrate the issue.

Corporate social media involvement has to be an ongoing process; you just can’t turn it on and off, you have to stay involved. Equally important, corporate marketing departments have to learn from each social media foray and practice continuous improvement. At the same time, there can be individual programs like these two from Cisco that have distinct beginnings and endings. The skill then becomes integrating these promotions into an overall, long-term social media strategy.

Another important integration issue—interesting, isn’t it?

What About the Changes on Facebook?

If you’ve missed it elsewhere, Facebook made changes on Wednesday that affect brand pages. When C. C. Chapman visited my class that evening we looked at the changes and wondered if the inability to moderate wall comments would scare away some brands. Caroline McCarthy had a good post on CNET yesterday that explains some of the issues.

You should check out some of the brand pages that you’re interested in. Target is one that gets Facebook and does interesting things. Check out their page and notice all the comments on the wall and look at their reviews page. All of us should "fan" (note that that's a behavior) a few good brand pages and watch what they do.

I noticed on my page that C.C. has updated the page for his agency, The Advance Group. The portfolio page represents the work of the agency and their boxes page shows the other ways you can follow this group of social media marketers.


No one is talking much about the effects on non-profits. In fact, I thought that non-profit pages were to remain under the Groups rubric. I checked out one of my favorites, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and it clearly has been converted. MSCPA is an organization with many passionate supporters, as you can see if you look at one of their pages. This is the wall page from their Angell Memorial Hospital. They will have people bring up issues from time to time, as people are currently discussing the closure of animal shelters as a result of the recession. These people are posting with sadness and understanding, but others could post in a more critical way.

It’s nice to look at this as a great way for consumers to contribute. Businesses and non-profits also have to look at the monitoring and response function. If you have your own page, you have to keep an eye on it. But you also need to be watching what people say about you on other pages.

It sounds to me like a serious set of feeds and filters for any business or non-profit that’s serious about its online reputation. When Facebook talks about filters, they are talking about personal Facebook pages and the way individuals can control their feeds, which is fine, but I doubt that it’s sufficient for businesses. There are some third-party Facebook tools out there, but a quick search didn’t reveal the kind of tool I have in mind.

I’ll keep looking. In the meantime, if you know of any monitoring tools specifically for Facebook, let me know!

Wishing You Happiest Holidays!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

A similar campaign with more personalization options (and an interesting voice-over)
Ace Your Face

Have a Wonderful Holiday Season!

The Growing Importance of Cocreation

I recently wrote about DoubleClick’s effort to get users to help design their new site. That’s an application of what is often called cocreation. The current edition of the McKinsey Quarterly has an interesting article on the subject (note related articles listed on the sidebar).

Their thesis is that cocreation is in its early days and companies are trying to determine how best to take advantage of the collective wisdom of their customers. Amen to that! According to the article,

Our research suggests that 25 percent of Western Europe’s Internet users now post comments and reviews about consumer products of all kinds (exhibit). User-generated media sites are growing in numbers of visitors and participants by 100 percent a year, traditional sites by perhaps 20 to 30 percent. (p 6)

This chart also once again illustrates the importance of word of mouth as well as the importance of soliciting consumer feedback, especially by outbound phone calling. The growing number of customers who are willing to interact with companies online is obviously of great importance.

Their research into uses of Second Life suggest that 1 in 10 members is already cocreating with companies, mostly helping to design new products and services. They go on to say that most of their respondents didn’t know that was a possibility and, when informed, 60% would be willing to interact with corporate entities. I’d add ones that they trust and in situations where they see benefit from the interaction.

If you have any doubt that the same phenomenon applies in the US, download the “User Reviews a Must” whitepaper from PowerReviews. In it PetCo VP of E-Commerce, John Lazarchic says:

“No matter how many reviews they receive customers continue to add their voice. A product may already have a rating of 4.9/5 but someone will still write another positive review.”

Wow!

The McKinsey article also identifies issues that need to be dealt with in creating community to participate in cocreation. They are:

•Attracting and motivating cocreators
•Structuring problems for participation
•Governance mechanisms to facilitate cocreation
•Maintaining quality

I’ve frequently pointed out that not all audiences are willing to participate (think older consumers) while some are eager to take part in collaborative efforts (think members of B2B vertical markets).

Looking around the web to see who else was talking about cocreation, I came across Cisco’s Executive Thought Leadership page and an interview with Prof. Thomas Malone of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. He points out that, as a result of the ability to share information at low cost, businesses can enjoy the economic benefits of large scale coupled with the human benefits of small scale which include flexibility and decision-making power. It’s a video worth watching. As you can see, there are other interesting ones on the site.

Is focused cocreation perceived to have some of the same dangers to the brand—mainly that people will say bad things—that opening to comments and ratings has? Maybe. However, good cocreation, as McKinsey suggests, directs the collective energy to making positive suggestions for the future. I’m confident it also leads to further bonding with the brand. Why not? The customer now has a stake in resulting products and services. That’s two highly desirable outcomes!

TouchLocal Reaches Out

A few weeks ago I wrote about UK site TouchLocal that was offering Internet users a trusted environment in which to exchange information and search for local businesses. Today I got an email from them. This is only the first or second I’ve gotten; they definitely aren’t pestering me. But they clearly are reaching out to encourage users to write reviews of local businesses. As you can see from their advertising page, they are also working to get local businesses to add their listings. That’s not an easy thing to do if my local area is an example of local business use of the web—and I suspect it is.













So reaching out for reviews is a nice thing to do. Is it worth a couple of airline tickets? Two recent studies suggest that it is. The first, reported in Marketing Charts, indicates that product recommendations/reviews are the most important issue in bringing customers back to a retail site. The passivity is also evident here; US users seem to be more interested in reading the reviews others have written than in writing their own reviews. Interesting. Even more interesting is the age and gender differences seen in the study results:


•Fully 41% of those age 18-24, the prime demographic for the social web, say they’re most likely to return to a site that makes recommendations. Only 29% of those 55-64 say so.
•Women are far more likely to be influenced by a welcome greeting - with 20% saying it’s the feature most likely to get them to return, compared with 12% of men.
•The older you are, the more you want to give feedback: The upper three age groups were more likely than the bottom three to say that a site that solicits their feedback is most likely to make them return.
•A few groups went against the overall trend by not selecting “recommendations” as their No. 1 choice: non-whites (they chose both “unique experience” and “feedback” ahead of recommendations), those with post-grad education (”unique experience” was slightly higher), and those with incomes under $25K (first choice was the “welcome”).
•There’s a wide gap between the lowest-income bracket and all others:
oOnly 26% of those who earn less than $25,000 per year chose “recommendations,” 10 percentage points below all other income categories.
oRespondents in the lowest income bracket were far more likely to prefer a “welcome” - 27% said it was the feature most likely to make them return, at least 13 percentage points higher than the other income categories (14% of those earning $25K-$50K and those earning $75K+, and 12% of those earning $50K-$75K agreed).
“The economy is fragile and the competition for the consumer dollar is fierce, but as these findings make abundantly clear, online commerce is now a two-way street - and retailers need to embrace that reality,” said Jason Meugniot, Guidance president and CEO.

Another confirmation comes from a Forrester study via eMarketer. Once again product reviews top the list, even more desirable than special offers or price comparison tools. Similarly, the ability to upload one’s own content is at the bottom of the list.

My own experience suggests that just making it easy for users to contribute may not generate much activity—especially the older and the more upscale your target audience is. The TouchLocal contest is one way—a relatively expensive one!--to reach out. I wonder what else can be used to motivate the passive viewers to become active contributors. Any ideas?
Sphere: Related Content

Quarterlife--New Incubator For Programming?

Did you see the first episode of the new NBC series last night? If you’re anywhere close to my age, you probably didn’t unless you just stumbled upon it as I did. Actually, I knew that the first series to have originated on the web and move TO television was to be aired, so I stopped and took a look.

To me, while there was no obvious story line there was the usual navel-gazing andtwenty-something angst. It’s interesting, though, that the first episode prominently featured Dylan’s video blog as sort of a centerpiece of the social interaction.

For all of us who didn’t know, the webisode series debuted in November on MySpace. It got media attention because seasoned Hollywood producers were behind it. About the time it debuted on the Internet it was picked up by NBC for a broadcast series. The interplay between broadcast TV, Internet and the writers’ strike is interesting. The timing made the independent content attractive; how much pre-planning went into that I do not know.

The series had its own website, quarterlife.com. Here’s what it says about the series today. There’s lots of video, a community, and a dozen or so channels on which users can post UCG and discuss subjects ranging from art to love. The ones I looked at seemed to have active content.
With the debut of the TV series the show has a page on the NBC website where, among other things, you can watch full-length episodes.

The package has a clear target audience—young, creative professionals. It has interesting cross-promotion between web and television. What is says about the future of programming on both screens (until/unless they converge to become one) is less clear to me. It occurs to me that the Internet may prove to be a faster, lower-cost way to test story ideas. If television is first, will movies be far behind?

It’s an interesting new wrinkle in the already-chaotic new media world!
Sphere: Related Content

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.

Sphere: Related Content

When Marketers Listen to the Voice of the Customer

When marketers do listen, it’s gratifying. Why do I also feel that it’s unusual? Amazon just sent me an email announcing that they not only received my suggestion, they acted on it. Now that is really unusual!

The story goes like this. In June, after 2 years of hard labor, I delivered myself of the second edition of my Internet marketing text. It was published by Thomson Custom Publishing (now Cengage), which had purchased the original publisher, Atomic Dog. Does that suggest some of the angst?

As part of their standard marketing effort, Thomson sent an announcement to Amazon containing basic information—things like the ISBN number and a brief product promo. That appeared to go up promptly—Thompson is a huge publisher and one assumes that Amazon pays attention. However, they still didn’t have a cover image up a couple of months later. I thought that made the book look like a mediocre also-ran.

All the publishers I’ve worked with seem to regard the workings of Amazon as somewhat mysterious. Maybe it's because textbook publishers are focused on their sales/college bookstore channels. But I’m an Amazon Associate, so I decided to see what I could do.

So I submitted a cover image. I had to do that in the “customer image” section, but at least there was an image on the product detail page. I was still disgruntled that there wasn’t an image on the main results page. So I signed into my Associates account and asked them to insert the image on the main page. The email went off into the black hole that swallows emails in automated systems. I assumed that would be the end of that. And checking back every few weeks seemed to confirm my pessimism.

Imagine my surprise when I received this email—on the Columbus Day holiday, no less—let’s hear it for automated email systems! Not only had they placed the image on the main results page, they reminded me I could do more.

They had already paired this Internet marketing book with a respected database marketing book. Customers had purchased it with titles on related subjects. There are publication details and the editorial material submitted by the publisher (not shown).

After the Editorial Reviews is arguably the most important section on the page. It allows any customer to tag the product. Below the tags customers can suggest searches (“include this product in searches for ‘interactive marketing,’ for example”). This requires the customer to sign in, and includes the customer name in the rationale for including the product in that keyword search. For sure, the tags direct search traffic to the product. Does activity like this also move the product up in the Amazon search algorithm?

Then there is the standard product rating function. After that they solicit customer reviews. That now includes video reviews—and they recommend a video cam you can buy to record your reviews—and your life. Good job!

Then they offer a customer discussion forum and a beta offering called Amapedia Community that looks truly collaborative. They provide relevant customer-submitted book lists – Listmania! and end with some links to related books and promotional offers.

Amazon gives customers a lot of opportunity to contribute content. In doing that, they give themselves a lot of opportunity to listen to the customer. All that content feeds into the Alexa search engine in one way or another. And I believe their description when it says the search engine has “ranking algorithms that learn from customer behavior.”

Something they are doing or something I am doing—or more likely both—is working; the book is moving up in the rankings on relevant keywords!
Sphere: Related Content

Video is a Driver of Online Growth

According to Marketing Charts ZenithOptimedia continues to predict robust spending growth for Internet advertising in the face of a flat growth rate for newspapers and a decline in growth of spending for television ads.

There is pretty universal agreement that video is one of the main drivers in the time users are spending on the web and consequently the dollars marketer are shifting to it. eMarketer, in their August 24 2007 newsletter, estimates current video ad spending at a mere $775 million in 2007 with an increase to $2.9 billion by 2010. In the same publication they quote an American Advertising Foundation survey of marketing executives that rates video advertising third in marketing effectiveness behind search and social networking. The Center for Media Research (free subscription required) quotes a study of streaming video by Advertising.com. Sixty-two percent of their respondents are viewing streaming video online, most at home in the evening. Segmenting by age, 31% of 18 to 34 year olds watch streaming video; 69% of consumers 35 and over watch streaming video. That surprises me; does it surprise you? Maybe it’s because of the content they stream; the most streamed content in the second half of 2007 was news clips and the only content that had declining viewership from the first to the second half of 2007 was music videos.

You can see interesting examples of corporate videos all around you—at least if you look on YouTube. This one is a family favorite.



Techniques to make it viral are there—share (email) and embed, as I’ve done. The chart in the post from InfluxBranding shows that it did, indeed, go viral but as the author points out, didn’t maintain it for long. So it’s necessary to keep the video creativity coming!

Let your customers help you. I’ve had wonderful experiences with all my grandchildren at museums and galleries. About a year ago I was privileged to be with my youngest grandson when he had his first museum experience. His mother never leaves home without her digital camera; that may be a generational thing. On this day she took some wonderful pictures, still, not video in this case. The little guy’s face was full of awe and wonder and pure enjoyment. Sadly, the museum offered us no place to share a few pictures of an enthralled two year old. (I just checked and it still doesn’t.) How sad. Letting customers upload photos and videos can be advertising beyond price. Especially since you don’t have to pay for it; just give them opportunity to share their experiences!

Using the Tools

It’s always a pleasure to receive an email from your daughter, especially one that has a picture of your adorable grandson. This one was special.

Her family signed up to participate in the Walk for Animals sponsored by MSPCA and Boston’s Angell Memorial Hospital earlier this month. The email included a link to their personal page complete with a picture, personal fund-raising goal and a link to their bulldog group web page. The scrolling list of donors indicated that various people and pets had already contributed.

Sure, I would have made a contribution anyway; they are my kids. But this made it easy for me. Even better, it made it easy for them. It was personal and appealing but very soft sell. Because it was a simple text email it was easy to forward. I did, and my friend’s cat made a contribution also. The system also provided an email template for participants to thank their donors along with the standard email acknowledgement by the MSPCA.

I wasn’t there, but I’m told that people, dogs, and a pair of ferrets had fun. The cats on leashes and the parakeets in birdcages strapped to strollers didn’t look as happy. But, according to the MSCPA, they raised over $330,000 with this event. Every communication provided links to the website and the HTML ones included a lot of the site functionality.

All this was powered by Convio’s TeamRaiser fundraising software. That made it easy to replicate some of the MSPCA home page components on the personal pages. It also interfaced with the MSPCA donor database, capturing new names and updating donor records.

The participants are an integral part of an event like this. Using interactive tools to improve their experience and produce desired results for the organization is a win-win.