Community Mobilization

Infecting the right people with Viral Marketing

Part of the challenge of consulting is working with companies and agencies that have exceptional ideas, amazing products, and challenges in aligning their digital marketing plans and their products.  I have been working with a number of traditional agencies who are retained to leverage social media and digital viral marketing to build brand awareness and drive sales.

Aligning target audiences and campaigns is challenging because in some instances the most viral content is out of line with the target audiences. The kinds of viral content like rick-rolling, starwars-kid, and others seem not to be media mainstays of moms who make purchasing decisions.

What is the value of a viral campaign if it is not reaching the core target audience? Is there value in creating a buzz around a campaign even if it is not penetrating the core market? I think that there is tangible and measurable value in viral campaigns that are not tailored to the purchasing decision makers. Especially if it is a new brand looking to build name recognition, or a mature brand looking to revive interest.

Digital Storytelling Event Tomorrow

I am really pumped to be speaking at the Tech Soup Digital Storytelling event taking place tomorrow throughout the day via webinar. You can learn more about the event by browsing the Tech Soup website.

I have been challenged with presenting about how you can create a storyline that is inclusive and at the same time very personal and individual. There is a real art in bringing together a community and understanding the common thread that is weaved through their individual experiences. It is that thread that is the beginnings of a shared tapestry that becomes the communal story.

I look forward to sharing some of the behind the scenes things that went on at the Second Life Relays, which I am sure will help people understand how we were able to create such a massive and successful event.

The Value of Identity Online

In working with one of my clients, I have come to understand the value of protecting your identity, and this morning in sitting in on a seminar I began to think about the value of online identity as an equation

 value = online reputation (good -negative) x action

I feel the 'action' component of the equation is an important but overlooked piece. Involvement and engagement are critical components because even if you have an unblemished reputation your participation, or lack there of, leverages your reputation. Zero action yields zero value.

Part of my thinking comes from my own observation of forums and online discussion groups where prominent figures take extended leaves and return to see their own value diminished not for a bad reputation event, but for lack of involvement.

I also began thinking of solutions for individuals to help repair their online reputation. There are a number of Credit and ID theft recovery services on the market, but I have yet to see a service that will repair online reputation. It can be tricky managing online reputations beyond good Amazon ratings - it is the intangibles that can have the most impacts and the management of those is what can make or break your value. If nothing else, a class on how to manage your online reputation in the face of challenges.

Social Network useres Don't Mind the Advertising ... Too Much

Razorfish recently conducted a survey of its Social Network users, and based on the results of over 1,000 responses they do not mind the presences of advertisements on the sites. Given there are some social networks that do a better job of integrating advertisements into the their user interface than others, making the advertisements integrated into the experience instead of a large flashing portal on the side of a page. The survey says 76% do not mind seeing the adds and 40% actually purchased from them.

The article goes on to discuss the value proposition and monetization strategies that exist in social networks, and how companies are being proactive in investigating these spaces. Razorfish's suggestion is that content and services distribution is becoming more important than Web destinations. The development of widgets to promote word of mouth marketing is a growing strategy as well as targeted recommendation marketing. sixty-five percent of survey respondents said they made repeat purchases from a Web site that sent them a recommendation based on their purchase history, and there exist opportunities to use social network feed information to develop applications around peer-to-peer recommendations as well.

Do Social Networks Make Good Friends

I got a ping when I looked at my Facebook Account the other day reminding me it was a friend's birthday. He is a good friend, someone I have know for over a decade, and so I sent him a message and gave a call congratulating him on another year. This is also the same friend who has been in and out of the hospital battling pneumonia, but you would never have know it from his profile.

To what extent do social networks provide the rudimentary bits of data to help people identify as a 'friend', and blur the meaning of a friendship? In addition have social networks spaces changed our definition of Friend to whomever finds us in the digital spaces and asks to befriend us? And most curious to me is do we have different standards for what constitutes a real world friend and an online friend?

I do not ask these questions rhetorically, I am honestly interested in the evolving definition of Friend. And once we understand the barrier to entry, I think we have to look at what the expectations and benefits are to both. Is it more permissible for a live friend to miss a birthday vs the digital on line friend who has the system as a crib sheet to important data?If you are in distress who get put on the telephone tree - either or both?  Most importantly who holds the most sway in helping you with decision making?

I think the last one is the million dollar question. There are associations and conference all based on word of mouth marketing, but have we measured the value or power of word of text? Does the digital friend have the same impact on your decision making as the real world friend? I would be hesitant to throw blanket statements over this, and end the post with my hope that there may be some genuine longitudinal market research showcasing the value propositions that exist in digital friends.

Google Lively

Google Lively is out, and it looks interesting. The space - a 3 dimensional virtual world brings in some visual elements of Second Life and There.com. Lively has predetermined rooms for chat and conversation and although there appears to be an exceptional amount of avatar customization, from the outset there seems to be little more environmental control other than designing a room.

The immediate question is what are the greater community building and tolerances of the Lively system. After just finishing Clay Shirky's new book and really thinking about the nature of group formation tools I wonder if this is just another one and how tolerant will it be (bing a corporate space) of alternative and non traditional groups using Lively. The tool and its technological capacity are far less important to Lively's future compared to the management philosophy that governs it.

Text messages and Philanthropy

The first time I saw txt messaging and fund raising it was back in 2005 around the Tsunami relief efforts. I do not remember the amount of money raised or the methodology through which they raised it (direct billing or carrier collected). Recently I have been reading information on the Chronicle of Philanthropy site regarding the advances by Mobile Giving Foundation and how they worked with the United Way on their Super Bowl campaign, which raised about $10,000.

The statistics are pretty clear that the mobile device is going to be the 1st piece of computing technology for an overwhelming percentage of the population of this planet. Our friend Katrin Verclas from Mobile Active.org has really embraced this idea with their efforts to turn the mobile phone into a change agent through awareness, education and activism.

Sharing Hope TV gets press coverage

Our program Sharing Hope TV recently received press coverage from a local Austin, TX news broadcast. The story takes a look at one user and how she is using the platform to support others in their fight against cancer. Our good friend David Neff was interviewed and really discusses the community nature of the space.

What is of particular interest is how the community at Sharing Hope TV is able to self express and support at the same time. The community is a niche community and they are using the site and the underlying technology in new was not previously designed for. Of major interest is the Creative Commons content compositions, where one artists compiles and reconstitutes works, or pieces of works from other artists into something new and unique.

Social Networks and Fundraising

Non Profit organizations are being drawn towards large social networking sites at a rapid pace, due in large part to the density of potential volunteers. One of the organizations looking to recruit new donors is the International Humanitarian Foundation. The group recently launched the $10/1000 campaign focusing on attracting 1000 new donors at $10. "Social networking has the power to effect change in our world. We can reach the people we know will be interested in our work in a viral manner," said IHF President Amish Parashar.

Part of the allure continues to be massive scope and size of these spaces, but no one has really tried to quantify the quality for specific actions. There have been no research studies that I have seen that help fund raisers better understand conversion rates in social networks, and ROI for each fund raised dollar. IHF suspects tha the overwhelming majority of new donors will be 1 to 3 degrees away from existing IHF volunteer, which speaks to the assumption that the web technology allows for stronger reach across weaker ties but we still do not know how strong or how far that reach can go.

Sharing Hope . TV Interview

If you followed the story of the Frozen Pea Fund from the beginning, you know that just before Susan Reynolds was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, David Neff of the American Cancer Society had Connie Reese to do some pro bono work for the Society on a new project, SharingHope.tv, which recently launched.

 

David Neff is the director of Web and interactive strategy for ACS, and is featured in this video talking about the origins of the idea for SharingHope.tv, and why ACS decided to build it with Ruby on Rails and enable OpenID.