News Update – Best of the Day

Every social media expert out there loves talking about The Cluetrain Manifesto and it’s impact on the future of our marketplaces. Now that the Cluetrain is more than 10 years old, I am trying to follow it’s creators in order to see how their views have changed. One of the founders Doc Searls -after Christopher Locke and david Weinberger some weeks ago- was writing last week about the main drivers of the open marketplace transaction, conversation and relationship. “Marketing is now all gaga over “social media” as well, in part because many believe that Cluetrain was all about “social” markets”, he says, and I have to admit sometimes I do see it that way, too. Having agreed with him, I do have to add: Technology changes quickly but it is difficult to change a market situation – no matter if social or open. Why? In the first place, it is driven by human beings. And it takes them a long time to adapt new culture. Haven’t we seen this 10-15 years ago when all this internet hype started? In some way, we seem to be on this learning curve again. Don’t you agree?

There are many valuable Twitter tool lists. Vadim Lavrusik created one of the (in my eyes) best Twitter tools top 20 lists that will help you improve your Twitter experience.

Adbands has become a classic event in the last years. And the commercial which was produced for the event tells us why. No more to say…

Gen Y and Z: Digital safety becomes more important

Recent studies show that the young internet generations are concerned about their privacy and online safety. The Habbo study on Generation Z web users makes clear that schools and parents have the most influence in terms of educating young people about responsible and safe online behaviour. They learn about online safety at school (29%) or their family (20%) – friends only 10%.

The Gen Z feels that online safety would become increasingly important in the future (61%). They still fell fairly safe in most online environments (55%). Only 19% say they don’t feel safe in many digital areas.

Gen Y, the Millenials that put a lot of private details online, also pays more attention to their privacy than older generations. However, recent research by the Pew Internet Project states that most members of the American Gen Y were more likely to monitor privacy settings. They make identification more difficult as they often delete comments or remove their names from photos.

The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology found out that 88% of responding Gen Y-ers want a law that would require websites to delete captured information. And they go even further. In an ideal world, 62% of them wanted the right to know everything a website knows about them.

Spot On!
Seeing this development, it could be asked whether social networks and digital platforms should not be more careful in stepping into the social graphs of their users from a marketing and monetization perspective. When social media platforms can see via fan pages which brands I like and which not, it could potentially destroy the trust that social network users have in them.

So, the question is how to handle this sensitive topic? Any ideas?

News Update – Best of the Day

In one of my meetings last weeks, a pr agency asked me how to connect the social web with virtual events. Jeremiah Owyang summarized it in his post, and saved some of my time.

Drinking and driving is a ‘No Go’ – texting an driving as well? Nevertheless, a lot of people do it, says a study of FindLaw.com, , a legal information Web site. – Scray, right?

For football clubs it is difficult to combine the interest of men and women. This commercial from japan has done it perfectly…

News Update – Best of the Day

Connecting the offline with the online world is one of today’s biggest challenges – not only for businesses but also for the individual. A recent study by Forrester reveals some insights in the increase and decrease on figures focusing the online behavior and internet usage of Americans in the last five years. Frank Reed gives a deeper analysis of the study and brings the message of the study to the point for marketers…

“As Internet users know more about what they want from their online experience it will be critical for marketers to be able to pinpoint those activities. There is less experimentation with broader activities. People know what they like to do online and they go to do that rather than poking around aimlessly.” Frank Reed

And he sees the internet as the extension of offline world. This comes close to my view of my vision…

“Online is just a catalyst of the offline world.” Martin Meyer-Gossner, The Strategy Web

Social media is nothing for lawyers and law firms? Who said that? Just found a very remarkable and long short-list of such companies, written by JD Scoop. If you need some ideas to promote your law business, this is the place to spend some time for “cost-free consulting”.

Adidas produced a wonderful funny commercial. You will be surprised when you see who “runs” these shoes…

News Update – Best of the Day

There are not many case studies on how to leverage social media for business and how to engage customers, partners, and press with social media. One great company example offers Cisco. Mia Dand summarizes Cisco’s approach on openness, transparency and ROI. And if you find the time see also the example of the American red cross by Beth Canter, including their social media strategy handbook…

Twitter and agencies seems to be a relationship that is not yet established for a powerful client mode. AdAge shows some amazing examples where agencies are handling Twitter streams for clients – but the agencies don’t even own their branded accounts, or have a powerful leader or expert which can be shown as a good case study to their clients. Scary?! My advice: Before starting to believe in the agency’s knowledge on social media, read the examples above and then take a look at this short post by Lawrence Perry: How not to be annoying on Twitter and other social media. Then decide which agency is the right one to handle your social media activities…

…and whenever I find a good example of a funny commercial, we will share this…

Safer Internet: Social Networks want to protect children

Let’s hope this was kind of a historical day, yesterday… The day against ‘Cyber-Mobbing’ was called the Safer Internet Day. One reason why 18 companies signed a new kind of declaration of a self-imposed obligation named the Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU contract.

In order to prevent the misuse of new technologies companies go hand-in-hand on their social networking future. Probably, much appreciated from parents is that big social networks have signed the agreement, i.e. MySpace, Facebook, Habbo or Bebo – but also Google and Yahoo belong to the group of signatories.

Spot On!
Children and young people face many risks with new technologies: i.e. cyber-bullying, grooming, privacy violation or exposure to harmful content (pornography, racism, etc). The contract is like a company-grouped agreement to protect young people online more than European legislation already does. As a dad of two kids I definitely appreciate the effort and will keep an eye on it.

News Update – Best of the Day

- Die Online Reputation ist inzwischen auch als Thema für Juristen populär. Das Yale Law Journal hat einen äußerst lesenwerten Beitrag herausgebracht mit dem Titel ‘Reputation as Property in Virtual Economies‘, welcher viele Bereiche der modernen Identitätswandlung behandelt. Im Grunde werden drei Online Identitäten besprochen: E-Commerce-basiert (z.B. amazon.com, etc.), Virtual World Economies (SecondLife and World of Warcraft) and Social Media. Zum letzteren Punkt bemerkt der Autor Joseph Blocher treffend…

“The importance of success in this reputational market can for some people be just as important as financial wealth—many people’s “lives virtually revolve around social-networking sites and blogs.” Indeed, by now it is old news that millions of people spend more time thinking about their Facebook profiles than their investment profiles. (…) The major task for future scholarship about reputational economies is to determine if these reputational norms are clear and enforceable, and whether and how they should be backed by formal rules.”

Passend zum Thema hat Martin Weigert das Thema Online Reputation und Schutz des persönlichen Image mit acht nützlichen Tipps zusammengefasst.

- Immer mehr Menschen haben immer mehr Social Media Profile. Einen Überblick über die Social Media Nutzung in verschiedenen Ländern hat jetzt Comscore World Metrix veröffentlicht (Grafik rechts). eMarketer liefert eine demografische Sicht der US User, basierend auf dem Pew Internet & American Life Project. Hier stellt sich mir nur eine Frage: 35% sind je männlich und weiblich, sprich der Rest ist …?

- Augmented Reallity at it’s finest… am Beispiel von iPhone und Travel Guide umgesetzt. Einfach ansehen und selbst weitere Ideen in den Kommentaren posten.

Don’t ruin your online reputation…

When the story came out we all knew that this is happening with and on rating and reviewing platforms, right? Companies hire and pay people to write something positive about their products. This was like a common unwritten law… But what happens if the truth comes out?

Let’s take the example of Belkin which was revealed by The Daily Background last week. The story on how a Belkin manager incentives people to write reviews on products sounds unbelievable, but less from the point of view of Belkin in my eyes.

It’s more the online reputation of the reviewers that I see as problematic and shows critical online behaviour. Furthermore, those who did not take money from Belkin will definitely not be happy – they stand in the line with ‘faked reviews’.

Now that the story is spread all over the world, everybody who is interested is checking the reviewers. These people have taken 65 US cents to type some phrases about a product that will not be changing their career.

Let us think what you can buy from 65 US cents? Chewing-gum? A lolly? A plastic pen? It’s not worth thinking about the value, isn’t it? You cannot get rich writing reviews, can you? But you can when you have a fine and proper online reputation on the web.

So, why do people rate products if they have no clue about the technology? If you read the reviews of the Belkin case, you know that this is the case… 65 cents for a black spot in your personal online reputation? Not worth it, right?

The most problematic point about this is if somebody really had to say something positive about the companies technology and the product but now is mentioned in the same breath with the people who faked a products image by getting paid for a review. Although they might stand out from the ‘cheating ones’ by choosing the right words, creating valuable content and being authentic in their point of view, it still can affect their online reputation. Not mentioning any kind of fairness topic…

And what if you do not know that this happened with a product review? If we do not have a personal web manager in place, we might never find out about it. Or do you know what you have written two years ago on some kind of shopping, e-commerce or social networking platform?

Spot On!
When we used to write letters to the editor, there was something to say in our eyes – it was our point of view. And it got forgotten after some days. The web does not forget. The web does create your personal DNA, your personal brand. The effort in the past was bigger: Typing, printing, stamping, walking to the post-office… Just because commenting, rating and creating content is easier today, we still should be thinking about what we are doing for our online reputation. So, you better don’t ruin it… or you can afford a personal web manager who is monitoring your personal DNA on the web.

Coffee Break: How coffee companies do micro-blogging

It seems that a lot of companies are still thinking about using social media for their marketing and PR activities. They are monitoring, discussing and trying to evaluate why this new interactive trend could apply to their business. Now, in days like these fast decision making is absolutely necessary if companies wish not to be overwhelmed by the new communication trend: micro-blogging.

Let’s take a brief look at the coffee companies and their efforts in terms of micro-blogging. Do they run their brand account? Who is the account user? A quick test…

Best Case: Starbucks
Starbucks is surfing on the Twitter-wave for a long time now. Customers can benefit from this engagement not only with bargains. Their Twitter account also focuses on sharing interesting events and music information or teasing brand- and charity-related topics they company would like to address. Starbucks is really reaching out for client conversation. Although this might be quite a challenge when a company has more than 30.000 followers. It’s not a one-way monologue like the past common PR activities. Followers are not just entertained, they are being ‘engaged’ in a brand and the discussion around it. Starbucks has embraced micro-blogging as a new way of customer relationship management.

The fast-food company Dunkin Donuts is also quite successful with 4.300 followers and showing similar activities on Twitter.

The competitors
What happens if internal evaluation and brand discussions takes too long, can be viewed when investigating on Twitter accounts for example. Not only can brands lose out on a great communication opportunity. They might be facing the problem to get their brand account name back by either paying somebody who uses it, or will need to involve a lawyer’s help. Or do private users need to hand over the brand account for free to big worldwide brands?

Some examples of companies that have been waiting too long (or where it is quite unlikely that the companies are really running the Twitter account) …

Balzac Coffee – Gone – Dead Account.
Coffee Bean – Gone – Private User.
Coffee Fellows – Gone – Dead Account.
McDonalds – Gone – Private User.
McDonalds Cafe – Gone – Unknown User.
Nespresso – Gone – Unknown User.
San Francisco Coffee Shop – Gone – South Florida Camera Club
San Francisco Coffee – Gone – Unknown User.
Tchibo – Gone – Unknown User.
Yuban – Gone – Private User.

Spot On!
Companies need to be facing micro-blogging as a new way of client communication. Just look at a Twitter search on direct messages for @Coffee Bean and see how and in which way people are talking about this brand. Don’t we all think, the account needs to be handled and provided by the company itself?

PS: This is just a simple list that readers might be willing to expand. Feel free and comment if you find further examples.

News Update – Best of the Day

- Die Studie “Medien und Marken im Web 2.0 – Erlösmodelle für Medien in der digitalen Welt” besagt als Kernaussage, dass “die Entwicklung nachhaltiger Erlösmodelle noch in vollem Gange ist; als erste Erfolgstendenz seien Personalisierung von Inhalten und Werbung, Kooperation und Syndication sowie E-Commerce erkennbar. … Banner-Werbung nach dem Gießkannenprinzip wird künftig durch Targeting-Lösungen ersetzt und die Verbraucheransprache auf ein angemessenes Maß dosiert. Abgesehen von Nischenmärkten Erotik und B2B werden es Bezahlinhalte auch in Zukunft schwer haben. (WUV, per Mail)

- Nach dem Launch der CBS Viewing Rooms zeigt Christopher Lawton anhand weiteren Beispiele jetzt auf, wie Community-bildende Features des Web immer stärker in unsere Wohnzimmer dringen werden.

- Das Upload-Magazin zeigt das Klassifizierunssystem der Internetuser durch Forrester und diskutiert die Passivität der deutschen Internetuser.

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