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I don't think I'll be able to sleep anytime soon after Tuesday's election results -- everything is still sinking in. So let me see if I can get some thoughts down about the not so surprising surprise in Massachusetts while I'm still relatively cogent.
As I look back at the past few months, and read the very good analysis and insights of folks like David Meerman Scott and Mike Schneider and Mark McClennan, I'm starting to wonder if it was the medium -- as seems to be the opinion rising from the social media echo chamber (not to cast any aspersions whatsoever on any of these very good posts) -- or the message -- as seems to be the prevailing opinion of the television and radio pundits.
 Let's focus on Twitter. The chart to the right (available on the Schwartz PR blog) shows the tremendous lead in twitter volume that Brown developed over the past week. It's clear that Brown (and of course his supporters and campaigners) leveraged social media to a much greater benefit than Coakley. But let's dig a little deeper.
Taking a look at their Twitter pages in particular tells us more than just how many followers they had. Oh, if you haven't yet caught the stats (where have you been?), Brown left Coakley in the dust when it comes to Twitter followers. But, as I tell all my clients, it's not about how many people are following you, but how well you engage with them. And it's here where Scott Brown won hands down.
Here's a screen shot from Brown's Twitter page shortly after the election was called:
I'll call your attention to a few things. First, look at the call to action in the background Twitter page image -- three simple steps to Republican victory. Next, note the variety of Twitter posts: @ replies, re-tweets, use of hashtags (oh, and TweetDeck too). Finally, look at his bio: it's another call to action.
Now let's have a look at Coakley's Twitter presence:
Not a bad looking Twitter page, mind you, but no messaging at all. No call to action in the bio or background image, just a few get the vote out requests in her tweets. While she uses hashtags, there's no use of replies or retweets.
A similar pattern arises when we look at Facebook.
So the question remains: did Martha Coakley lose because she didn't get social media, or because she didn't get the message out? It's a little bit of both, I think. Let's not lose sight that we need to look beyond simple follower numbers before we come to any conclusions. When it came to social media, she forgot that it's really all about engagement, not just eyeballs. Brown didn't beat Coakley because he had more followers, he beat her because he was better at engaging his followers. He stayed on message, and he used social media to get that message out.
It's not the medium or the message -- it's both! (And unfortunately for Coakley and Obama, her messages included (paraphrased) "I don't care about Boston sports," "I'm not really that much of a people person," etc.)
Oh, and lest we forget our independent candidate, here's a screen grab from his Facebook fan page that captures his campaign in a nutshell:
 In episode 4 of the Fresh Ground Podcast, Todd Van Hoosear talks with Paul Gillin, veteran technology journalist, author, blogger, researcher and consultant. Paul is a popular speaker who is known for his ability to simply complex concepts using plain talk, anecdotes and humor.
Todd and Paul talk about how to start in social media, measure ROI, give up control (and why giving up control can be so valuable) and “ditch the pitch.”
This interview was originally recorded a little more than a year ago.
Some of the more interesting excerpts:
“Starting small is fine. There’s no reason that you have to make a big enterprise-wide commitment to social media in order to start some spot blogging, launch a podcast or do some video … training.”
“[A] lot of what goes on in social media is in fact what we have been doing on television, and radio and in print communications and in newsletters… We’re simply using a different means to do that, and we are creating a two-way channel around it.”
“When you can take a company … as big and as conservative as Procter & Gamble and say this company is making a huge corporate-wide commitment to a new way of communicating with its customers, that is … a pretty compelling case that this idea has gone mainstream.”
“There are paradoxes in social media… The more control you give up, the more control you get… The more you give away, the more you get in return… The more transparent you are, the more control you have over information.”
“The trend is very clear that people who influence important constituents are important to institutions, regardless of the media they use. As mainstream media continues to decline, and crumble in many cases, this may be all we have left in some markets.”
“The traditional [PR] pitch is almost a scripted engagement, and I know that if I ever want to play games with a PR person’s mind, what I’ll do is start asking intelligent questions… When you’re talking with someone who has a high level of knowledge, as most bloggers do, you can’t deliver a pitch. They’re not going to listen to it. They don’t play the game. They’re not trained in the game like journalists are. They are going to challenge you right off the bat. So you can’t go in unprepared. You can’t go in with a scripted plan. You have to go in with a plan for a conversation, and that requires a fundamentally different approach to PR.”
About the Fresh Ground Podcast: Each week, we feature 10 minutes of insights from people driving change in today’s competitive business and media landscape. We talk about the evolving worlds of media, public relations, marketing and business, with a special focus on creating more social organizations.
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As promised, however late, here are my predictions for 2010:
 Twitter still won't show that it can make money. Twitter doesn't want to show that it can make money: all the better for valuation, according to many. Sure, there will be more deals, including some form of Twitter Pro account I would guess, but I predict you'll find Twitter (and Facebook for that matter, although they've monetized quite nicely) with its ear to the ground for technology and competitive developments in 2010, waiting for sunnier pastures before exiting. What will that exit look like, and when? Ain't nobody saying.
- It's all about the RT. No, I'm not talking about Twitter's "re-tweets" here: I'm talking about the real-time web. The money that Twitter did get in 2009 came because it has its finger on the Zeitgeist of the web: the day-to-day, minute-by-minute trends and interests that content producers and attention whores alike want to get their hands on. Any technology that can help companies (or governments) put their fingers on the pulse of the public will be a prime target for money in 2010, both from private as well as semi-private and public coffers.
- The PDA will be reborn alongside the intention web. The "personal digital assistant" was a really cool idea, but nobody wants to carry around even two devices, let alone three, four or five (e.g., phone, PDA, camera, iPod, ebook reader, etc.). The next generation of the PDA is being incubated inside your smart phone, with umbilical ties to all of your online services, from calendaring to movie preferences to shopping lists. Jeremiah Owyang calls this "beyond real-time" wave of innovation the "intention web" (see graphic below), and your smart phone will be the nexus for it:
 "When Real Time is NOT Fast Enough" 
- Augmented reality will be a reality, sans the cool shades or half-blind pedestrians. Yes, we'll get a few pedestrian accidents as people try out phone-based augmented reality apps like Layar (below). But the real usefulness of AR aren't quite AR apps yet, but transitional steps toward AR. These include apps like Google Goggles, which does photo-based mobile searches (although it's far from ready for prime time); and the many barcode scanning apps that are starting to tie into price check databases and shopping apps.
- The PR lines will continue to blur. Speaking of PR, it's clear that the lines between paid and unpaid media are rapidly blurring, and the consequences are disturbing. While some pros are optimistic about this trend, I share Mark Story's and Shel Holtz's concerns about the trend, as exemplified most recently by the Huffington Post's decision to offer sponsored posts and tweets. As Shel points out, will this prevent companies from participating in conversations about their company online, simply because they don't want to pay to play?
- [LATE ADD] We'll find something more interesting to measure. With all the talk about measurement and ROI this year, I couldn't resist adding one more prediction: we'll finally find something both interesting and useful to measure when it comes to PR and social media success. It certainly won't be ad equivalency or followers, and it probably won't even be ROI. Will it be engagement? No, that's just a fancy way of describing followers. I'd like to hear your thoughts...
- [LATE ADD (29 DEC 2009)]: Amazon will have much more to worry about than the Nook. Rumors abound that Apple will take a stab at a portable tablet device taking aim at eReaders and netbooks both. Will Apple try to get into the book business like it's done with the music business? They'll have a much tougher go at it, but it seems like a logical step.
Okay, that's all I have for you. Let's see how I do. Have a very happy new year, everyone!
I've been pondering a lot recently about the cultural changes that need to be put in place inside organizations to effectively implement Web 2.0 and social media across the enterprise. This recent research from SNCR 's Don Bulmer and Vanessa DiMauro shows the reach beyond marketing very clearly. I highly recommend you read this.
The research shows that social media is having a tremendous impact beyond the realm of just marketing: it's impacting professional decision making. Here are the highlights of the research (directly from Don's post):
1. Professional decision-making is becoming more social - enter the era of Social Media Peer Groups (SMPG)
- Traditional influence cycles are being disrupted by Social Media as decision makers utilize social networks to inform and validate decisions
- Professionals want to be collaborative in the decision-cycle but not be marketed or sold to online; however online marketing is a preferred activity by companies.
2. The big three have emerged as leading professional networks: LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter
- The average professional belongs to 3-5 online networks for business use, and LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are among the top used.
- The convergence of Internet, mobile, and social media has taken significant shape as professionals rely on anywhere access to information, relationships and networks
3. Professional networks are emerging as decision-support tools
- Decision-makers are broadening reach to gather information especially among active users
4. Professionals trust online information almost as much as information gotten from in-person
- Information obtained from offline networks still have highest levels of trust with slight advantage over online (offline: 92% - combined strongly/somewhat trust; online: 83% combined strongly/somewhat trust)
5. Reliance on web-based professional networks and online communities has increased significantly over the past 3 years
- Three quarters of respondents rely on professional networks to support business decisions
- Reliance has increased for essentially all respondents over the past three years
6. Social Media use patterns are not pre-determined by age or organizational affiliation
- Younger (20-35) and older professionals (55+) are more active users of social tools than middle aged professionals.
- There are more people collaborating outside their company wall than within their organizational intranet
Or, "Who Owns Social Media (Take 3)"
I continue to ponder the cultural implications of social media and Web 2.0. Last week I declared that the CEO owns social media, and I stand by that assertion. But this week I was prompted to ponder this further by a post from Amy Kenly on the Innovation Experts Network in LinkedIn. She asked (bold is LinkedIn's):
How are manufacturers taking advantage of social computing & Web 2.0 technologies to raise the bar on product development performance? Where is the intersection of social computing, PLM & innovation?
She went on to share some insight into the question from PLM (that's product lifecycle management for you non-manufacturing types) analyst Jim Brown from his article on "social product development". Here's an excerpt from that (bold is his):
The implications [of social product development on manufacturers] break down into two categories. The first implications are about the applicability and importance of social computing in product development. You have probably heard me talk about this before, and this report helps confirm and expand my thoughts on the subject. There is clearly something of value happening with the intersection of this exciting and popular new way of communicating and the business of developing profitable products.
The second set of implications fall into the category of practical advice and lessons learned to take advantage of this new opportunity. The opportunities are available, but the most important thing is that manufacturers don’t discount the applicability of social computing concepts based on their personal experience with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, or any other social networking sites. Manufacturers have to see through the use of these communication techniques for “fun” and see the significant business potential.
This potential will likely never come from the public social networking sites, but instead by incorporating these “Web 2.0? concepts into existing infrastructure and product development solutions. This is the most practical method to both achieve the value, but also ensure that product data and intellectual property (IP) is protected and that the solutions are used in the right context – to improve products and projects that drive corporate profitability.
This got me thinking about revisiting marketing titles and roles. My response to her:
Social product development is an excellent way to frame one facet of the impact of social on the enterprise -- the other obvious area being social marketing.
Most companies have started with social marketing. Here's the catch: if your business isn't equipped to deal with what Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li call the Groundswell, you could find yourself in hot water when something goes really right or really wrong.
Social marketing is dangerous if the only public face is a lowly marketing intern, agency rep or other marketing person with no input into other aspects of the organization. If that person, however high up in the org s/he may be, cannot bring the engineering team, product management, HR, customer service or any other relevant team to bear to respond to issues raised in the public domain, they will get called out for it and put to task.
The "who owns social media" question has resurfaced recently, and my answer was the CEO. Now that may not be realistic in many organizations. Perhaps its time we created the role of the chief social officer, who can ensure that it all runs smoothly, and that the proper feedback loops are in place between marketing, engineering, customer service, management and the "crowd" or "tribe".
Since I posted that Wednesday evening, I thought more about the implications of social across the organization. I've argued for quite a while that a big component of social media is cultural -- and that implementing it across the organization requires some serious change management chops.
I also agree with Inc. Magazine that "title creep" is filling up the C-suite, so maybe a chief social officer is an unnecessary addition. Inc. calls out a still-growing recognition of the role of "chief revenue officer:"
The storied C Suite is getting a little more crowded, as CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, and CTOs make room for CROs, or chief revenue officers. Such executives typically are marketing officers on steroids--overseeing functions like sales, new product development, and pricing.
This revenue generating focus was called out in a post by Scott Gillum (again, bold is his):
So…the marketers that will be in the highest demand coming out of the recession will be the ones who have been aligned or have had direct responsibility for growing revenue. Marketers that can speak the language of sales. Unfortunately, it will be a slow process for folks with a Brand PR and Corp Comm or the Ex-Agency/Media guys.
Marketers with backgrounds in Product Management/Marketing who have owned a P&L, folks with sales backgrounds and/or marketers who can show that they can drive revenue/growth will be in demand first. The challenge for the other groups is that of supply. It’s not to say that good Brand and Agency folks won't find positions it’s that it’s going to be hard. Expect that you will be [competing] with many other qualified candidates and it may be difficult to differentiate yourself.
While I will continue to argue that social media is owned by the CEO, I think all of this research shows that there's a growing need for restructuring organizations to incorporate "social" across all functions -- from finance to HR to engineering to customer support and, of course, to marketing. Perhaps the chief social officer is the conduit for that change, but maybe we ought to call him or her the chief social revenue officer. I'd love your thoughts on this role.
It's predictions season again. As I mentioned on Friday, the Society for New Communications Fellows got their heads together a couple weeks ago on this very subject. I won't spoil the fun by sharing all of our trends and predictions, but I will look back at my own predictions from last year and some of the big trends we saw. In my next post, I'll look forward even more and make some predictions for 2010.
The Birth of Web 3.0
Despite the continued prevalence of "2.0" everywhere we turn, last year I issued a few trends/predictions on my own blog, focusing on the semantic web, or "Web 3.0" as it's sometimes being called. Here's exactly what I said late last year -- I gave a two-year timeline, so hold my feet to the fire next year on these:
- Trust. Trust is one of two remaining economic scarcities in the Internet Economy—there’s just not much of it out there. Chris Brogan put it nicely: “Though a company like Microsoft spent millions and millions of advertising and marketing dollars trying to improve our perception of the brand, none of us gave a sh!t until Robert Scoble came along and put a human shape around their online and event presence for us.” The trust barrier will be solved by understanding how human “trust agents” (as Chris puts it) work, and by allowing us to layer “trustworthiness” over all of our online interactions (not just in search, but social networking, bookmarking, blogging, etc.)
- Attention. Attention is the other economic scarcity remaining. There are only 24 hours in the day, and we have to sleep for a good chunk of them. The competition for the rest of them is fierce. Applications that are smartest at competing for our attention—or at helping us understand what we should be paying attention to—will have a distinct advantage in the web 3.0 world.
- Agents. Chris Brogan talks of human trust agents, but digital agents will finally come back into the public’s view as well. I’m not talking about the old school “tickler” agent (”Hey, don’t forget you’ve got to pick the girls up from soccer practice tonight”), nor am I talking about Google Alerts (”You asked me to keep an eye out for blog posts mentioning ‘Web 3.0?, so here you go…”). It’s closer to the kind of capability you see in good contextual advertising (my favorite example of which is all the “Bacon Salt” ads I get on Facebook after I signed up as a fan of the bacon page), but it’s both cross-platform and cross functional. As just one small example, you tell it that you want to be kept abreast of upcoming social media events, and it checks Upcoming.org, Facebook, Evite, Meetup, etc. and shares with you the events it finds, allowing you to sign up for them through its own interface.
- RSS. I can’t tell you how wrong-headed so many interpretations of Forrester’s recent report are (Paul gets it right in this link). RSS is not dead. It’s simply buried so deep that most people don’t even know it’s there. But that doesn’t mean they’re not using it. Content syndication will be at the heart of web 3.0. It empowers almost everything I’ve been talking about in this post to some extent. Don’t sell it short. Look for ways to use it and build applications around it.
- Semantic Web. I’m sorry. I hate to use this term. It has such negativity surrounding it. But let’s put all that bias aside for a second, and ask ourselves a question: What if there was a way, for instance, that my blogging software could understand that what I was writing about—in plain English—was an event I was trying to promote, and could translate that information so that it could automatically be shared with Upcoming, Evite, Eventbrite, Facebook, etc.? Tell me that wouldn’t be cool. The AI behind something like that isn’t too far away—hell, the Turing Test is pretty close to being passed.
- OpenID! A conversation between myself, @RodBegbie, @al3x and @sbtodd on Twitter made me realize how important something like this will be to Web 3.0. If you assume that trust and interoperability will be at the heart of Web 3.0—go ahead, try to argue otherwise—then an idea like OpenID becomes critical. It provides a common identity platform for interoperability. YES, to quote Alex Payne, “It’s confusing for users and developers, it doesn’t bake security in, and it doesn’t solve a problem that non-geek users care about.” But it’s just confusing because nobody’s been able to explain it well. Security can presumably be fixed. And Like I said on Twitter, it might not solve a problem most non-geeks care about*, but down the road they might!
* THIS geek certainly cares about it. I am LIVID every time some sites password security mechanism forces me to create YET ANOTHER password that I will ultimately forget. And what about interoperability? To make that happen, you’ve got to give away some security. For instance, for a lot of the cool (not to mention necessary) Twitter apps, I need to share with them my Twitter username and password. Having a security layer on top that ultimately ensured that Twhirl doesn’t have to know my password, or that I didn’t forget the super-strict password that I had to create especially for one service, could ultimately make my life easier.
Trends in 2009
The SNCR fellows called out some interesting emerging trends in 2009. Here are some highlights:
- The line between journalism and blogging has blurred to the point that U.S. government is starting to pay attention (e.g., recent FTC rules)
- Business schools have gotten on the social media bandwagon (finally)
- It's easier to measure more aspects of your PR, advertising, marketing and social media programs; and big companies are rethinking how they pay for services based on this
- Speaking of measurement, ROI was on everybody's minds and lips (but we're still not quite sure what to measure)
- Government 2.0 is slowly, sporadically becoming reality, but (here's a surprise) very slowly
- Privacy continues to be renegotiated
- Customer service is now social
Society for New Communications Research Fellows were asked yesterday to review the year's biggest trends, and predict what's coming down the pipeline over the next year or two. You'll catch them all in an upcoming blog post from SNCR, but one topic that came up was the imminent re-emergence of the "who owns social media" debate, fueled by the growing realization of the impact that social media and Web 2.0 can have outside of the marketing department.
Not to continue harping on customer service, but here are a few examples of the impact improved customer service programs can impact the top line (courtesy of social commerce vendor Bazaarvoice):
- Reviews led to a 20% decrease in PETCO’s return rates.
- Customer Q&A decreased product returns 23% for automotive retailer JC Whitney.
- Canadian Tire decreased customer service costs by 81% with Bazaarvoice Ask & Answer.
And that's just customer service -- social media can impact HR, finance, engineering and many other departments. So, this begs the question: who owns social media? This question was beaten to death back in 2008, and yet the answers were not consistent. Are we ready to finally settle on the answer? Everybody owns social media, and therefore the CEO owns social media. Any questions?
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