For a while I’ve been following an industry blog called Brandflakes for breakfast. 
I first came across it because they’d written a nice write up about one
of our campaigns, and as I kinda liked the sound of their blog I
checked them out.

Since liking the Brandflakes blog, I’ve now fallen in love with the agency behind it – Plaid.

Put simply – Plaid are
rad.  On the front-page of their site they describe themselves as the
“greatest agency in all the land” – which is good enough for me.  What
makes me like them even more is their annual road-trip around the US “Plaidnation”,
where they visit and interview interesting companies in their branded
Plaidmobile.  Of course being social media superstars they tweet, blog and video their trip, ensuring they maximise both their real and virtual social connections.

What
Plaid seem to do so effortlessly is make me like them by being nice
(and interesting).  Which is rule no.1 of the social media
handbook.  As Faris Yacob
(another social media superstar) says “be nice or leave”.  Plaid seem
to nicely extend this sentiment to “be nice and interesting and fun and
giving, and stick around and become buddies”.  What all agencies (and
brands) should be like.

(PS, Plaid – please can I have my T-shirt now!)
(PPS, I didn’t write this blog just to get a T-shirt – I’ve always liked Plaid.  However, what the T-shirt has done is activate my advocacy.)

Plaid Pre-Tour 2009 from Plaid Nation on Vimeo.

 Ensuring the safety of users can be a big headache for brands that create and maintain online communities, as anonymity has traditionally made it incredibly difficult to ‘vet’ them. Maybe they have a history of abusive behaviour on other sites? How would brands be able to tell until the same behaviour patterns have emerged in their community, the damage already being done?

Well now there’s a system that has the potential to eliminate the problem. We’re starting to offer our clients trials with the revolutionary ReputationShare technology (a product of LOOKBOTHWAYS Inc). We believe that this technology marks a significant step in community management, and, more importantly, online child protection.

ReputationShare tracks the online reputation of community users and shares this information with companies that also use the technology on their websites. It does this by linking the user’s online reputation to their email address(es). It also allows people to check their own user rating – more details can be found in the ReputationShare whitepaper.

We’re hoping that the technology will be adopted by as many people in the community management and moderation sector as possible.

The more companies that adopt this technology, the more effective it will be.

To sum up the benefits of ReputationShare:

Reputation travels – ReputationShare lets brands access user reputation information so that a user’s reputation will travel with them when they join a new site/community – in much the same way that credit reference information is shared.

Which means that if a user is notorious for stoking flame wars, trolling, cyberbullying or grooming on one or more participating websites, the technology lets the website they are joining see that the new user has a negative reputation, which gives the site owners a chance to make an informed choice about who they interact with based on reputations. Moderating staff will receive automatic updates on the behaviour of their users on participating sites, so a user’s status is always current and moderating decisions can be based on up-to-date information.

Rewarding positive participation – But this technology is not all about moderating bad behaviour, it’s also about acknowledging positive participation. Allowing companies to identify and reward users who take a positive, active role in their communities.

Making moderation and community management more efficient.  There are potential cost savings  as companies find that users with a history of positive participation don’t require as much of the moderators attention as those with no history, or a less than stellar reputation.  Community Managers will be much more effective in their targeting of the best or worst performing users on their site.

Are there any concerns?

As with all technology, especially technology that monitors the activity of people, concerns will be raised.

Data Protection – Naturally, reputations are anonymous and secure. To ensure user’s privacy ReputationShare provides services with a secure one-way encrypted hash algorithm to apply against their user’s email addresses; it never receives or stores personal information.,which is important for data protection purposes.  The reputation information can be leveraged by all participating companies across the whole spectrum of online services, but no company ever receives details about another company’s user base; this information remains anonymous.

What about freedom of expression? – As we have discussed in our teens and tweens whitepapers, moderators have to allow people to have disagreements and give them the space to work them out between themselves, only stepping in if community rules are broken, or things start to get out of hand. So it is important to note that everyday misunderstandings will not massively impact users’ reputation scores.

Users will only get a seriously reduced rating for specific, serious abuse of the rules of a website (like uploading offensive or abusive material onto a community designed for children).  The service’s algorithms take into account the date and severity of the offence and only in cases where an incident report is extreme, such as a report of sexual or grooming behaviour, would a single report dramatically damage a user’s online reputation.  

What if a user feels they have been unfairly scored?  Users can view their online reputations and challenge a negative contribution with the site concerned if necessary.  Reputation Share will be monitoring the participating sites to ensure that moderation actions are fair.

Participating sites choose for themselves how to interpret ReputationShare information and apply rewards or strictures accordingly.

It’s always going to be difficult to provide one hundred percent protection for children, teens, even adults, one hundred percent of the time. As technology progresses there will always be work-arounds that savvy and malicious users can exploit to manipulate the vulnerable, but, if brands work together with the same aim in mind – protecting their communities – we can all make a huge contribution in the continuing fight to give all of us a safer online environment.

This is interesting – Will Sullivan at Poynter Online has a report on online audiences getting used to longer web videos.

It’s a theme that I’ve posted on before on my home blog,
that despite the huge numbers touted around about the online video
explosion, those same numbers have pointed to something completely
different once you scratch beneath the surface.

Namely that while it’s reach mass adoption levels, online video viewing is done in short several minute bursts – indeed Tube Mogul found out last year that most people stop watching after the first sixty seconds.   Then there’s the statistic that most web-only TV style mini series don’t fare well at all, losing most viewers after episode one.
The overall conclusion until now has been that online video is fine for
a bit of light entertainment here and there, but for TV style viewing,
the TV itself still rules supreme.

Will Sullivan points to a New York Times piece by Brian Selter who talks about the cat on keyboard style stuff being “supplemented by a new, more vibrant generation of online video.” Quality is up, so is the technology and so is the content. The long term trend is that online video is growing up as a medium.

Is
this a threat to TV companies in the same way that online media is to
print? Absolutely not. For starters, average video durations were still
only 3.4 minutes in March according to Comscore. More to the point, the
TV industry has been at the forefront of seeing the Web as an extension
of its media property and not a threat, with whole programmes being
available for free online via devices such as the BBC’s iPlayer.

Interestingly
the New York Times points out there is another parallel to films at
first being extremely short. Due to the technology not being up to
scratch, the first kinetoscopes in the 1890s were only about 30 seconds long: “It probably felt like a giant dangerous leap to short films of three minutes.”

Image – GR Shado

On the eve of the inauguration of the 44^th US
President, some guy named Obama, GoViral was gracious enough to provide me with
proper send-off for number 43, George W. Bush, with a collection of his
infamous gaffes, malapropisms and all-around cringe-inducing moments from his
eight years at the helm of the Oval Office. Enjoy!

5. Is Bush an
“Idiot”?

For those more
interested, this is a discussion from NBC, trying to determine whether Bush is
an illiterate idiot or actually clever, but just not very articulate.

4. Bush Dodges
Shoes Thrown by Iraqi Journalist

The famous recent
shoe attack from Iraq. Bush very swiftly dodges the shoes being thrown at him
by an Iraqi reporter. In Iraq, slapping someone with a shoe is the worst
possible insult. The United States President seems to handle it fine, though.

3. Top Ten George
W. Bush video moments, Late Night David Letterman

Here is another
brief compilation of Letterman’s favourite Bush mess ups.

2. President Bush
Makes Fun of Himself

President Bush
speaks at a radio & TV correspondents dinner. He is definitely not without
humour or charm. It only seems strange that his ability to articulate himself
comes out the best, when he is not being serious.

1. Must See
Hilarious George Bush Bloopers

This is a
compilation of some of the funniest George Bush moments during his Presidency.

The last few weeks have seen polar opposites in terms of luck for Phorm, the personalisation technology company. On one hand it appears as though both BT and TalkTalk have put their plans to implement their technology on hold (I say on hold as apparently the contracts are still in place). Yet on the other, they received yet another cash injection of £15M to help support their trials in other markets.

The digital industry has long viewed Phorm with distain following the supposed illegal trials in the UK and it is these events that have tarnished the brand and opened up the discussion to the wider population. When the likes of the BBC and Guardian are talking about it, you know you’ve got a problem and it is almost certainly having a negative impact on public opinion towards behavioural targeting in general. The interesting element about their plans in other markets, specifically the Korean trial is that they’ve learnt from their mistakes and consumers are given the opportunity to opt-in from the start. To quote the press release (PDF link), “KT customers opting into the trial will not only benefit from existing features such as enhanced user privacy and more relevant advertising, but will also be invited to experience an innovative new consumer proposition…”.

Now you would have expected them to learn from their mistakes in the UK but this change also risks undermining their whole product. With the service being opt-in, is the opportunity for some free software (which is hardly scarce and not particularly exciting) and more relevant ads going to be enough to convince consumers to sign up? Clearly the big telco’s have a very strong position and if they put their marketing weight behind the trial then signups might not be an issue but from an advertiser’s perspective being opt-in reduces the size of the audience and is also likely to be skewed to a certain demographic. Great if you want to target the naïve first time web user but not so good if you want to target professional consumers, especially those using mobile for a large proportion of their web use.

So, can Phorm survive? In the UK it looks as though they will find it very difficult to change public perception and rightly so, their brand has been tarnished and they are unlikely to now spend the money needed to change this view.  Even with the recent cash injection they need to work on their costs – Brand Republic recently revealed that Phorm have a burn rate of $1.8 million dollars a month, not great when you have no revenue streams whatsoever. However there are still another 194 countries in the world in which to run the service and it is likely to be this fact that has prompted investors to continue to inject money in the company. Why else would you continue to invest in a business that has received so much negative coverage?

Women want brands that offer certainty and trust. Tesco have levels of trust reaching 70%,
higher than any financial institution. Previously I talked about how
women are reassurance addicts when it comes to technology- they will
rely heavily on the sales staff or “phone a friend” before they buy
technology.

Tesco entering the IT support market is a  smart move.Positioning it
as a female friendly service is an every smarter strategy. My research highlighted women often feel dumb walking into
Dixons or PC World. It’s hard to ask a spotty teenager what “RAM”
means. As one women said to me when I asked her first impression of
Dixons: “There was a strong scent of man”

But give women a female friendly environment where they feel they
can ask silly questions and they will buy. Not only will they buy but
they will buy along with their eggs, meat and the rest of the shopping.
Hence tech shopping stops being a painful diversion and becomes a
less-scary add-on to the shopping list. The no commission business
model will also stand Tesco in good stead as so many women talk without
feeling under pressure to buy.

My advice to Tesco would be to extend this service to compete with the Geek Squad and offer women help installing and servicing their consumer electronics in their home.

1) Demystifying technology.

2) Going to women’s environments rather than asking them to come to yours.

3) Using women to recruit other women.

4) No commission based business model.

With a strategy like this, who ever needs to smell the scent of man in Dixons again?

The future of social media is extremely bright, taking internet users to a point where social sites cease to become a place on the internet and start becoming the internet itself.

The sheer momentum behind social media is unlikely to slow down anytime soon, while the convergence of a number of critical factors are creating a pivotal moment for the online phenomenon.

The end of the beginning is nigh – and more importantly the future of social media is starting to take shape.

We have mass adoption, ubiquitous technology and considerable investment into social sites. These key factors, which are now all converging, will force the changes that will see the last barriers knocked down and the final challenges overcome: cross-compatibility, and profitable business models.

These trends will lead us to a point, where social sites cease to become a place on the internet and start becoming the internet itself.

More and more conventional websites are now incorporating social aspects such as user- generated content or social bookmarking. It is not a huge leap from here to the point where the entire internet is based around social sites and functionality.

In this new world, niche social networks will proliferate, brands will ‘do’ rather than simply ‘say’ and the internet will be defined by your preferences.

As these social spaces become our gateways to more and more content and interaction, a traditional approach to online brand advertising no longer applies.

Banners are out. In come advertorial-style content, branded apps and brand-led community sites.

Furthermore, brands will need to embrace new technology in tailoring their message to the right audience. If they get it right, the benefits in terms of brand engagement and mass advocacy are mouth-watering.

Platforms such as Google Wave and Netvibes are already giving us a glimpse of a future where users choose what information and data they want; a world where users filter data before it’s delivered to them, and customize the way it’s presented when it reaches them.

The next phase of the social media revolution offers huge potential for brands that get their strategy right, as well as pitfalls for those who fail to adapt. For end users, the good can only get better.

If you want to read more on this, I have just written a more in depth white paper on the subject that you can find here

The recent Brand Republic article about the influx of silver surfers signing up to Facebook paired with an exodus of younger users suggests that another platform could be about to follow the likes of MySpace and Friends Reunited onto the list of social media fads.

The main problem Facebook has is that as all the cool young kids (read early adopters) that have been members for so long are starting to jump ship, with their parents’ recent arrival potentially being a primary motivation.

When Facebook originally began, one of the main reasons for its success was its exclusive nature – you could only join as a member of a school or college network. At the start, there was no chance of the ‘wrong’ people getting hold of information (especially incriminating photos!) as the owner of the profile knew only classmates were on the site. Things have gradually changed however – Facebook opened up to Google and unless the user tweaks their privacy settings their information is available for the whole world to see (and that includes your mum, dad and Auntie Doris – all of whom are rapidly signing up)!

The problem the site has is that for many youngsters it was a form of escapism, where they could post details of their wild weekends and chat up the boy from the year below at school without their parents knowing anything about it. Until now. Now, your mum might be poking your best mate. And that’s something you never want to happen. With your parents on your friends list status updates have to expletive-free and photos are de-tagged as soon as they are tagged.

In short, Facebook’s open nature has led to many feeling censured and as though they must water-down their opinions. And that is never a good thing – especially on the internet, where all it takes is someone with the ability to write code and have an idea on a unique slant for a social media platform. As a result, the young crowd will leave and find a new haven, where they can speak freely and without worry of the fun-police watching over their shoulder. A perfect example of the challenge that Facebook faces was demonstrated in a group I came across while researching parents on social networks, where one contributor said:

“My daughter is 20 and I *made* her make me a friend this past summer. It has resulted in many arguments over the past 6 months. I made her remove anything that I felt was inappropriate such as sexually suggestive bumper stickers, drinking pictures, inappropriate comments, obscene language.”

Another issue for them now is the emergence of other platforms such as Twitter, which effectively offer a simplified version of Facebook, concentrating on the here and now rather than on looking at the photos of what faces people pulled last night in the pub. The only reason many younger people will be staying on Facebook at present is because they have invested a lot of time on collecting both contacts and photos – as Facebook focusing on tearing down its walls in a bid to be more like the barrier free darling that is Twitter it might just end up missing the point.

There has been a lot of talk about how users should be able to own their own information. If someone can find a way of transferring all of that information – the social graph and all those photos – from platform to platform I can’t help but wonder if Facebook could soon be on its last chapter.

- Most clients have a web agency, an online media agency, an online advertising agency… Some have an email delivery platform, or an email marketing agency, SEO and PPC specialists. And then the advertising agency or the sales promotion agency do tactical stuff (virals and vouchers, gobbling money to little useful gain). You might have some of these, or work for one.

Most clients spend lots of time getting their agencies to improve what they’ve got by 3%. That’s a 3% better website, or a 3% better performing ad campaign. It’s all, from what I can see, very tactical, very incremental, deeply fragmented.

But we’re in a recession, and it’s just not good enough. There’s a huge opportunity to think again, to take stock and look around at what’s possible today, not what was possible five years ago when you started on the road to improvement. Today customers expect to have a voice, they expect you to listen to their needs, observe their behaviour and deliver them relevant, timely brand-engagement-inducing nudges and touches, wherever they are, online or off.

ECRM offers a slightly different way of looking at things, provided you define eCRM as a strategic approach rather than an executional method. It requires that you head back into the customer data, evaluate all the touchpoints you currently have – the website, ads, emails, SMS, social media – and create a strategy that is designed not to have the most engaging website, but the most engaging customer journey. This way you become channel-agnostic, and digital execution becomes subservient to how you relate to your customers, not the other way round.

It’s worked particularly well for companies like McCain Foods who’ve turned digital on its head and are now having a single conversation across several different channels. Brand engagement with brand resistors has gone up from 14% to 63% in ten months, which is staggering.

Using a top-down strategic view doesn’t mean getting rid of your agencies, it just means they’ll all be working to a single over-arching strategy, rather than just doing the best they can do in their niche. It means you get a coherent plan that can be delivered as usual through segmented email or segmented microsites, but is flexible enough to incorporate new channels (like social media) as they emerge.

All digital de-fragmentation takes is a little strategic thinking, but what it leads to can be revolutionary.

You should follow me on Twitter here.

Behavioural targeting has been heralded as the light at the end of the tunnel for the likes of Facebook and YouTube who still need to prove their commercial viability.
 
But as that promise unravels, it provides a timely reminder that the principles of off-line marketing do not necessarily apply online. The new world of social media dictates a completely different approach – people use to the power of community to rebel against  sneaky advertising and overt sales messages – so it might be time to forget behavioural targeting and move on.
 
Behavioural targeting offers a system to reach web users according to who they are and what they’re looking for. If advertisers could target consumers based on content and demographics, it was assumed that click rates and engagement should suddenly soar. Website owners could charge a premium. The accountants can sit back down.
 
But, as Facebook, Google, Phorm and others have been pouring money in to behavioural targeting there has been a growing concern amongst many sections of both government, NGOs and industry groups about how these systems work.
 
This has been brought to a head recently in the UK by Phorm’s secret trial with BT.

Phorm is a system which runs within an ISP’s networks and monitors every user’s behaviour. Based on these browsing habits, it alters what ads users receive.
 
There are major issues with this. Firstly, the trial itself was connected in secret and BT users who were ‘guinea-pigging’ the system without being informed at any point that they were being monitored. This is certainly illegal, at least according to the European Union, which is currently looking at taking legal action against the UK government, possibly Phorm and BT too.
 
Any trial run under these circumstances should start ringing alarm bells. Amazon, amongst others, has asked to be permanently removed from the Phorm system and it is widely expected other major online advertisers will start to follow suit.
 
There is however a bigger problem, especially from an EU perspective. European law on data privacy is amongst the most stringent in the world and all members have to have laws that match the EU directives.
 
If not already killed off by the Phorm trial, the 2002 European Privacy Acts will almost certainly be the end of behavioural targeting before it starts.
 
Unlike traditional forms of media, the web is an active experience, where a user actively chooses where to go and what to read or watch. In this environment ads are more naturally seen as an annoyance getting in the way.

Things have gone so far that browser Firefox has an ad blocker available as a free download which removes all adverts across every website.
 
Even adopting the opt-in route used in email marketing is not going to work in the long run.

Why, as a web user, would anyone choose to give advertisers all of their details for nothing?

And why would I choose to have my browsing experience interrupted by advertising at all?

I can already get all the content I want from millions of sources at zero cost.

Ultimately, passive, lazy advertising does not work in the social media space – indeed, it can do more harm than good and no amount of behavioural targeting will make the difference in a world that is shaped and reshaped by the consumer on an almost daily basis.

If advertisers want to engage with online audiences then they need to get creative. Far from being a no-go zone, social spaces offer the lure of huge traffic and plenty of opportunity to get involved, but brands need to regard them not as traditional websites. The people who inhabit them regard these spaces as places to express themselves and connect with people.

If brands want to join in with the engagement then they must be sympathetic to the nature of social spaces. Any activity must be able to provide a benefit to the community, not simply attempt to sell them something.

Successful social media strategies add value, presenting brands as facilitators, enhancing the experience for the end user. Rather than jump onto someone else’s network, more and more brands are choosing to create their own community spaces – and some are even being brave enough to take their logos off!