So what are the benefits of Twitter? People usually think of Linkedin as the ‘professional’ social media network, but there are benefits to what Twitter can also add to our online presence as a professional.  The open nature of Twitter means that you have access to individuals and companies that may be hard to reach in real life. One of the most talked about factors in the live web chat was the lack of barriers to be able to connect with thought leaders in a given space. Twitter is also a great place for people/ recruitment agency/ potential employers to see your personality, so don’t be overly professional, talk about other interests and parts of your life where appropriate.

So what should I do about Twitter?

• Well, if you’re not on Twitter then get on it, fast. Employers will now expect an online presence and being engaged shows a genuine passion for digital, over and above just having a linked in page. Twitter and blogging is good, in a competitive market any way of presenting this involvement and passion wil reflect well.

• It’s really important to be engaging – Twitter provides a social media platform where we can share thoughts and add value to discussions.

• Share interesting content both professionally and personally, show that you are really passionate about something, the content you share and thoughts you give say a lot about you.

• Be interested in others and share others’ content, first impressions are important.

• Create a ’network’ within your space and add value to your particular community, following people that you think are engaging within your community.

Following a few simple steps is important so you became an attractive prospect and to be seen as an engaging individual. You can find out more about us at www.wearefutureheads.co.uk or follow me on Twitter @Ed_Rycrof

Some of the busiest sites in the UK are community-based, such as Mumsnet and MoneySavingExpert. Here’s 9 simple tips to help you engage and grow your online community:

1. Get to know your community well
It’s important to be part of your community as well as manage it – get involved! Knowing your community helps you provide content that will be of interest. It also gives insight into how the community thinks and acts, thus allowing you to talk to them appropriately.

2. Know where they are and when they’re there
Think about the best times to speak to your community and understand the reasons why this is the case – where will they be, what will they be doing? If your audience is mainly singles under 25, posting on a Saturday night isn’t going to be the optimum time to speak to them. It may sound obvious but you’d be surprised how often timing isn’t considered!

3. Communicate effectively
By knowing your community you’ll be able to figure out how to communicate with them effectively – you’ll get to know how they want to be spoken to, but even more importantly, you’ll be able to balance the organisation’s objectives with the needs of the community.

4. Make it as easy as possible to talk to you
Make sure your Facebook page and Twitter account have easily searchable names. Make the profiles identifiable as you. Keep it short and simple as this will encourage people to tag you or mention you in their social media activities – don’t needlessly take up valuable characters! Promote what social media platforms you’re on by linking to them from your website and putting them, where relevant, on marketing literature.

5. Listen to what they’re saying
When a consumer engages with you, really listen to what they’re saying. After all, they’ve gone to the effort of taking time out of their lives to interact with you so make sure you make it worth their while.

6. Find out what’s going on in the wider conversation
Make the most of free listening tools available. Hootsuite, Facebook Insights, SocialMention and Google Alerts make it easy and cheap to listen to what’s being said about your brand online.

7. Don’t be scared to be bold
Communities hosted on social media platforms are, in general, public and so anyone can see what’s being said on them. Just because your content is visible doesn’t mean it needs to be ‘wishy-washy’ as to avoid confrontation. Don’t be scared to really show your organisation’s personality – if people like it they will tell you, if people don’t they will most definitely tell you. Just remember, as long as you can justify why you’re posting something then go ahead.

8. Be human, be nice!
Customers like when companies are nice to them, plain and simple. Think of your community as an extension of your customer services. Being nice, understanding and, where needed, apologetic will help you avoid conflict and potentially turn angry customers into happy ones.

9. Make sure it looks great
Make the most of what social media platforms are offering to help make your community belong to you – use Facebook cover images, branded YouTube channels and Twitter accounts to bring your platforms in line with your brand guidelines.

What’s your experience with online communities? Have you already got one or thinking of setting one up? Share your comments with us below!

About the author: Julie Gray is a community & social media manager at award-winning digital and creative agency, Whitespace, who advises and manages social media for a variety of clients from alcohol brands to government organisations.

Following an impressive breakfast buffet and hosted by BIMA chair Justin Cooke and executive member Justin Pearse, the event featured presentations from John Webb, Cloud Marketing Director at Rackspace; Ron Peterson, Social Director at AKQA; and Dara Nasr, Head of Agency Sales at Twitter.

Rackspace’s John kicked off the presentations with a brief analysis of the current social landscape, stressing the critical importance of distinctive, high-quality content in an age of what he termed a ‘content deluge’. In addition to content, John was keen to highlight the redefinition and increasing significance of context. This, he explained, involved making stories relevant to consumers, using social insight, location data and as it becomes increasingly accessible, human API data, in order to effectively and personally engage with consumers.

Ron, of leading digital agency AKQA, argued that marketers need to invest more in social media on the basis of three key properties:

-social provides a truly unique channel that is always active and live

-effective use of social provides brand value through trust, sentiment and advocacy

-social media allows businesses to uniquely connect with their consumers on an individual basis.

The future of social is not to connect more, but to connect smarter, Ron asserted. Social is, and should be more than just a platform for marketing purposes, and will become used more frequently to inform and guide all aspects of management, from operations through to sales.

The distinctive nature of social media was echoed by Twitter’s Dara Nasr, who provided compelling examples of how Twitter connects brands to their customers in real-time, allowing businesses to gauge the tone and sentiment of consumers and to respond accordingly. Dara argued that in order to fully engage with social, brands must absorb it as part of their wider communication strategy, rather than treat it as a tool to be employed on a campaign by campaign basis.

You can find the presentation slides from Rackspace and Twitter here.

To conclude, attendees were given the opportunity to question our expert panel on the future of social media, how to best to go about investing in social strategy and the importance of an integrated marketing strategy.

The event was well-received and well-attended, with many of those who couldn’t attend in person following BIMA’s live tweet stream online. It was a promising start to this new series of events from BIMA. Photographs to follow soon!

To keep up to date with BIMA’s event news, please register for our newsletter here.

This year, the ASA has both banned and scrutinised a number of UK Twitter campaigns. But what did they do wrong, and how can you make sure your campaign lives on?

Transparency is key – best practice says that you should always include #ad or #spon in each tweet that’s sent as part of a campaign.

And if you’re the agency responsible for the campaign, the onus is on you to make sure that your brand ambassadors make it clear that they’ve received payment or goods in return for their involvement.

What did Nike do?

This year Nike became the first UK company to have a Twitter campaign banned by the ASA.

Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshere, two celebrity brand ambassadors for Nike, sent tweets from their personal accounts referencing the Nike strapline – make it count:

@WayneRooney
‘My resolution – to start the year as a champion, and finish it as a champion… #makeitcount gonike.me/makeitcount’

Why was it banned?

The ASA ruled that using Wayne’s and Jack’s personal accounts broke the rules: the tweets weren’t clearly marked marketing communications. The ASA said:

•    The Nike reference was not prominent and could be missed
•    Not all twitter users would be aware of Nike’s #makeitcount campaign
•    Not all twitter users would be aware of Nike’s sponsorship of the team

What did Mars do?

Earlier this year Rio Ferdinand, Katie Price, Sir Ian Botham and previous X-factor contestant Cher Lloyd sent a series of 5 tweets within 1 hour for Mars using their personal accounts. On their final tweet, each posted a photo showing them them biting into or pointing at a photograph of a Snickers bar.

@rioferdy5:
Really getting into the knitting!!! Helps me relax after high pressure world of the Premiership

Can’t wait to get home from training and finish the cardigan

Just popping out to get more wool!!!

Cardy finished. Now 4 the matching mittens!!!

You’re not you when you are hungry @snickersUK #hungry #spon

@misskatieprice:
Great news about China’s latest GDP figures!!

Chinese leaders are now likely to loosen monetary policy to stimulate growth. Yay!!

OMG!! Eurozone debt problems can only properly be solved by true fiscal union!!! #comeonguys

Large scale quantitative easing in 2012 could distort the liquidity of govt. bond market. #justsayin

You’re not you when you’re hungry @snickersUk #hungry #spons…

The campaign received complaints that these were not clearly identifiable as marketing communications. Mars had the chance to respond with its case.

What did the ASA say?

•    Each tweet formed part of an orchestrated ad campaign.
•    Each tweet was considered as part of an ‘individual marketing communication’ at the point each was posted and therefore should have been marked accordingly
•    Mars’s suggestion that the first 4 tweets were teasers and the final tweet made it into one solid marketing communication was not upheld

The lack of labelling of the individual messages was acceptable in this instance because:

•    the first 4 tweets were relevant to the strapline;
•    they were sent in close time proximity to each other (1 hour)
•    the photo gave enough context

4 Rules to stop your campaign being banned by the ASA

If you’re part of an agency developing social media campaigns using Celebrity Brand Ambassadors, what do you need to know?

1.    In tweets by celebrities, ambassadors and bloggers, use #spon or #ad (#ad is 2 characters shorter, of course)

2.    Celebrities, ambassadors and bloggers have a duty to tell people they are being paid or have received free goods

3.    Bloggers have a duty to ensure that when linking to products or services for which they have been paid in money or free goods that the link has ‘no link back’ attribution in the code. This way, search engines do not wrongly give preferential page ranking to the post.

4.    As an agency, you have a duty to make these conditions stick

Resources:

Fuller details on the Nike campaign ban in The Guardian: here
Assessment by the ASA on Mars Chocolate UK Ltd: here
UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing, CAP Code: here
Social Media, Legal and Commercial Best Practice, Nicola McCormick: here

What’s your experience? Share your social media best practice tips below…

About the author

Tiffany St James is a social media strategist, trainer and speaker who advises government and industry through her agency, Stimulation

The summit was a great success bringing together senior level Digital Managers with leading digital solution providers for a series of pre-selected 30min meetings to discuss services and solutions required in the 2013 digital strategy.

The summit facilitated approximately 380 30minute meetings over 2 days.

The attending buyers held a collective Annual Digital Budget in excess of £40million.

The solution providers held a wealth of experience in all aspects of Digital marketing services making this an extraordinary event to be a part of.

I have no doubt that the testimonies will speak for themselves, the solution providers will see this as a major source of new business and the buyers will have benefited immensely by taking the opportunity to meet a number of solution providers of their choice. Networking in this professional and pro-active environment has provided the opportunity to review companies and services available, to obtain the views of industry specialists and make the necessary connections to take their digital strategy forward in 2013. There were also a number of highly informative seminars held making this a must attend event for digital professionals.

Look out for information regarding the iDigital Summit 2013 to be held on 23^rd & 24^th September at The Radison Blu Hotel, London Stansted Airport.

For further information please contact the iDigital Team: idigital@forumevents.co.uk

Main Sponsor:

Media Partners:

Hosted by:

The Digital Business area within T-Systems UK develops Internet-based solutions for large corporations and mid-sized companies. The expertise is coming from T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH, a 100 % subsidiary and an end-to-end web-service provider. The company’s 1.400 employees serve customers from all industries by translating web innovations into trend-setting services for the digital business and social ecosystem. These include solutions for e-commerce, mobile and social business, e-portals, cloud-based services as well as web IT management. With a wealth of experience our specialists create tailored approaches to enhance your digital presence in the market and keep you one step ahead of your competitors. Services include consulting, development, testing and operational support in many fields. For the tenth year in a row, we are the number one in the Internet Agency Ranking 2012.

For more information please visit our website.

The iDigital Summit is a B2B networking event bring together Digital Marketing Companies and Senior Marketing Managers of buyer companies actively seekng digital marketing services. The format is a series of 30min meetings over a day and a half with a pre-determined itinerary to ensure both suppliers and buyers have the opportunity to choose and speak with relevant parties and forge business relations. If you are a buyer or supplier interested in being a part of The iDigital Summit, contact us via the web-site, we’re here to facilitate the meetings.

For further information contact the iDigital Team  E. idigital@forumevents.co.uk

Hosted by:

Experian’s range of digital products, including Hitwise, CheetahMail and Alchemy, ensure you are ahead of your competition in search, analytics, email, mobile and social media.  And when combined with our consumer classification and segmentation tool, Mosaic UK, we can provide you with the data, insights and tools you need to execute multi-channel campaigns with successful results.

22nd & 23rd October 2012 – Brighton Hilton Metropole

The iDigital Summit is a B2B networking event bring together Digital Marketing Companies and decision makers of buyer companies actively seekng digital marketing services. The format is a series of 30min meetings over a day and a half with a pre-determined itinerary to ensure both suppliers and buyers have the opportunity to choose and speak with relevant parties and forge business relations. If you are a buyer or supplier interested in being a part of The iDigital Summit, contact us via the web-site, we’re here to facilitate the meetings.

For further information contact the iDigital Team  E. idigital@forumevents.co.uk

Hosted by:

Strange is a creative digital marketing agency. Clients achieve exceptional results from our award  winning planning, creative, web development, ecommerce and digital marketing services.

Clients benefit from our approach and experience.  Whether it’s a CPA focused marketing campaign, a complex ecommerce integration project or just brilliant creative, we help our clients achieve their business objectives.

Currently ranked in the top 15 independent agencies by RAR and voted Digital Agency of the Year by The Drum, we work with a diverse range of B2B and B2C clients including Barclays, Belron, Brittany Ferries, Fuji Film, Google, MTV and Nike.

22nd & 23rd October 2012 – Brighton Hilton Metropole

The iDigital Summit is a B2B networking event bring together Digital Marketing Companies and decision makers of buyer companies actively seekng digital marketing services. The format is a series of 30min meetings over a day and a half with a pre-determined itinerary to ensure both suppliers and buyers have the opportunity to choose and speak with relevant parties and forge business relations. If you are a buyer or supplier interested in being a part of The iDigital Summit, contact us via the web-site, we’re here to facilitate the meetings.

For further information contact the iDigital Team  E. idigital@forumevents.co.uk

Hosted By:

- Consider how users will be able to interact with your ‘pinned’ content if rights have not been cleared for use.

- Agencies  who manage campaigns on behalf of brands should make the potential issues clear to clients with brand pages.

- Agencies should make sure that contractual relationships with clients do not make them liable for user generated content on brand pages.

- Ensure you have clear guidelines in place for staff on how to interact and use the site, to help reduce risk.

http://www.forumevents.co.uk/forum/iDigital/idigital-october-upcoming-events.html

BIMA’s chair Justin Cooke welcomed guests with his vision of the event, saying: “It’s about giving our winners the platform to tell their stories as well as giving the Awards a long tail. We’re positioning the BIMAs as so much more than just the celebrations on the night.”

And with help from the expert interviewing skills of David Jenkinson at C21 Media the stories flowed. Nathan Guerra, Director of Innovation at AMV BBDO took the opportunity to enthuse about his agency’s Grand Prix winning project for the Metropolitan Police, describing it as one of the most innovative campaigns he has ever worked on, using the iPhone in a way no one had before.

Profero CEO Dale Gall was still on a high from their amazing night at the BIMAs where they scooped up Agency of the Year and the Creativity premium award, as well as four category wins. Dale freely admitted that the BIMAs were a welcome punctuation point after a difficult period for the agency. “2010 was a very tough year for Profero and, I think, for many agencies. It was evolve or die. Some did, some didn’t.”

Monterosa and Endemol’s co-production for Channel 4 was another strong performer at the BIMAs and Simon Brickle of Monterosa said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to be recognised by awards in two categories. The Million Pound Drop Live has defined live 2-Screen play-along as a new entertainment genre, with millions of people participating in a synchronised game experience over the last year.”

We couldn’t let the day end without collaring our agency stars for their predictions for 2012 – some of which are set out below:

“For a lot of companies, 2011 was about learning about the power of social media and how to use it. 2012 will be the year it’s put into practice.” David Gamble, Creative Director of Saint@RKCR/Y&R

“2012 will be about games and gamification. We’re seeing a number of examples of people gamifying their sites… everyone from Photoshop to foursquare.” Matthew Evans, Director of Solid State Group

“For 2012 I’m personally interested in what marketing can learn from games in terms of fun.” Chris Kempt, MD of Kempt Ltd

“2012 will be the year for people who are bold enough to pioneer. People want rich experiences on their devices, they want content they haven’t seen elsewhere. It’s not a question of re-purposing.” Ian Wharton, Creative Director at Zolmo

We’d like to thank our headline sponsors Dedipower and Bing Maps from Microsoft for supporting the lunch and establishing it as a great addition to the BIMA Awards calendar.

The BIMA Award Winners' Lunch

Hello again Taverners

It feels like a long time ago when we ran our last evening – all about gamification. Hopefully now, the holiday season has come to an end, the kids are back at school and we can get back to the business of having a few beers together and working out how to do more for – or with – our brands and the people who use them, buy them and interact with them.

The next event is on Thursday October the 13^th 6:30 for a 7pm start and I’m hoping the the theme will inspire you to join us. The event takes place at The Brickhouse, Brick Lane in central/east London

Social Media is the love child of pervasive technologies and the internet and our human desires to connect, share, be a part of a tribe and stand out. Many of us seemingly spend almost impossible (and improbable) amounts of time ‘out there’. There’s been much said recently about software like Twitter and Facebook – not least because of the riots that flamed across the UK. These aside, is social media really a gift to brands and if so, will it keep on giving?

Join me and special quests as we all go on a grail quest to uncover the real return on investment in social and how to capitalise on it. Park your Facebook likes at the door and hear how other brands have learnt to maximise the potential of both earned and owned social spaces. We may even discover how to do more than simply build brand awareness or improve customer experience – can you make real money ‘out there’? Once again, I’ll ensure that we have expert speakers but that we will also have a conversation around the theme – after all, the tavern is always meant to be a dialogue.

Given the popularity of the last event and how that worked, we will cap the invites at 200. So don’t miss out, say yes today by emailing michelle@thefantastictavern.co.uk, I’ll bring the beers.

If you’d like to co-sponsor the event or feel you’d like to contribute to the content, please let me know (matthew.bagwell@emc.com) . The more (of either) the merrier.

There’s no way you could have missed the latest news stories, groups of youths within the communities of England have been causing unrest in many major cities, causing criminal damage, burning down buildings seemingly indiscriminately and looting from all manner of businesses.

It’s said that one of the reasons the riots have been so easy to organise and instigate is because participants have easy access to a variety of social networking platforms, making it increasingly easy to spread the word and collect a following of rioters and looters.

Two of the platforms said to have played a role in developing these scenes are popular micro-blogging website Twitter, and RIM (Blackberry’s) instant messaging service BBM. Facebook has also played a role in the riots with ‘campaigns’ being created to encourage more people to get involved.

Twitter

Police are now turning to the platform which has been used as a medium to instigate recent events, by using similar methods to catch the culprits. The Met used Twitter to announce the release of pictures of individuals involved in the rioting and has also been tweeting other policing developments around the riots to keep the community updated.

So how could the government look to restrict Twitter users? A highly controversial technique used in Eqypt during riots against government corruption, was to completely block all users from within Egypt from using Twitter. This would be a way to quickly cripple the way in which users have organised and publicise recent events, but there could also be a backlash from businesses and the general public which depend on the website to operate. It would have also hampered the clean-up operation which many affected communities are participating and organising via social networks. Why should the whole country go without something for the sake of a few criminals?

The Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner, Steve Kavanagh has claimed that users of these platforms, who try to provoke violence, could be arrested. However, Freddie Benjamin, a research manager at Mobile Youth believes that while many users may be inciting such actions, very small proportions are involved in the events.

This could mean a range of innocent parties being arrested even if they have no involvement in the disturbance, and the severity and intent of a tweet is down to everyone’s personal perception of it, as tweeters may claim they were joking or being sarcastic about events. We don’t want to create a situation where people are terrified that they will get arrested for making a joke!

Blackberry Messenger

BBM has been the most commonly used tool in organising meet-ups of large groups to cause chaos all over the country. Its popularity appears to be down to the fact that it’s a private, encrypted social network which still has the capability of reaching many Blackberry users. The Blackberry appears to be the most popular handset among these youths and it has enabled rioters to quickly exchange information and contact details such as unique PIN codes which allows fellow Blackberry users to contact them.

Research In Motion (RIM) the makers of the Blackberry have stated they will co-operate with the police and the home office in any way they can, so that any guilty parties can be caught and arrested. However, this will inevitably prompt privacy issues with Blackberry users and could have a detrimental effect on their reputation if users feel private messages are no longer private.

Social Good

It should also be noted that in these chaotic times, social media has not just been used to instigate and incite violence. As mentioned earlier, social media has also been used for the good of society with residents of the affected areas using social networking websites to organise the clean-up of their demolished communities, through the hashtag #riotcleanup.

On top of that, Facebook groups have been created with members declaring their backing and support for the police forces who are challenged with restoring order in the UK, and the metropolitan police have also used FlickR and TumblR as a way of exposing and identifying some of the criminals involved in the UK riots through CCTV footage.

Misuse of Twitter

It appears that social media, and in particular Twitter, will always be involved in major news stories. Recently a number of high profile footballers have been fined by either the Football Association (The F.A) or their clubs for misuse of the social networking website, with one team threatening legal action upon their players if they criticise their club via the social network.

In June, a drugs trial costing £6million in Manchester fell through because one of the Jurors contacted a defendant via Facebook, which inevitably led to the Juror facing jail time. Jurors are strictly prohibited from using the Internet in any way shape or form when deciding on the outcome of a court case.

This goes to show the influence social media has on our society, and how we can never underestimate the power of it. Personal issues, political views or work matters should be carefully considered before putting them online for the world to see, because once you have posted it, there’s probably no going back on your words.

Although these new channels of communication have been extensively used throughout the riots for all the wrong reasons, as well as the right ones, we can’t place the blame squarely on them. Wouldn’t these people have found a way to communicate with each other in some way shape or form? There was no Twitter or BBM during the events of 1985, yet rioting still took place.

The issues are much deeper than that. Perhaps these youths feel like the consequences aren’t strong enough? Or maybe they just don’t have a purpose in life outside of making the lives of others a misery? Either way we should look to the root of the problems we face in society, not simply point our fingers at the nearest thing we can find to blame.

From a business perspective, social commerce can be described broadly as “the ability to influence and prompt an online exchange of goods or commodities between parties through the medium of a social network”. This is the notion that use of popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, can directly drive sales for retailers through their online networks of consumers.

How can we access social media?

Without doubt, the amount of social media we are exposed to has increased, and this is partly because we now have the option to access our favourite social sites through a variety of new platforms.

In the early days of the social network, we would have no option but to access such sites through a PC or MAC, but nowadays there is a great variety of mobile devices on the market with internet access, almost all of which have specialist applications to make the user experience suit the device. Tablet PC’s and mobile phones in particular are great examples, with New Media Age reporting that in 2014 there will be more mobile internet than desktop internet users.

What do we do with our social media accounts?

Social media gives us the ability to tell all our friends and contacts about our personal preferences and opinions. This generally comes in the form of our favourite brands, sports teams or celebrities. Because of social networks, we now have the ability to share these likes and interests in a non verbal way, and influence the likes and interests of friends and relatives.

“Each time a member clicks the ‘Like’ button or follows one of these sites, they signal their affinity for a product or a brand to their group of friends.” Wired, January 2011.

Blippy, a social platform launched last year, allows its users to automatically and publicly share both online and offline transactions with other users. Rather than just broadcasting your interests or something you might ‘like’, it’s now possible to gain instant peer feedback to help justify a purchase, influence the future decisions of your contacts or simply identify an overspend!

A recent survey from E-consultancy came to the conclusion that 90% of purchases have been socially influenced in some way; whether that’s through a verbal recommendation from a friend, or you saw somebody wearing/using it. So maybe social media is just another method of doing something that already exists outside of the Internet, but in a slightly different way?

Amazon’s US website has gone one further than its competitors with social media integration by letting their users combine their Amazon and Facebook accounts. So Amazon not only know your ‘likes’ and interests, they also know your friends ‘likes’ and interests and can make recommendations based on their preferences, targeting you in advance of any birthdays or events.

Why should brands do this?

It’s already a tried and tested strategy for consumer brands to post exclusive deals on their social media pages, almost always leading to a higher than average conversion rate. As such, these brands are keen for their online popularity to increase. Brands want to make it as easy as possible for people not only to ‘like’ their Facebook pages, but also to encourage the sharing of these pages amongst their friends.

Users can then share these Facebook pages (with deals) with their friends by ‘retweeting’ or ‘sharing’ the purchase; and these deals can only be accessed by others that become a fan of the page, in theory creating a viral cycle which more brands will almost certainly “become a fan” of.

Location commerce

Through location based applications, you can now inform your friends where you are, what you’re doing and offer them the option to come and meet you. Brands are broadcasted and friends are tagged in these updates, giving otherwise unattainable information.

With the increase in popularity of these ‘Check-ins’ after the launch of Facebook places, social commerce is not only something which can benefit online retailers. With its new “Sponsored Stories” ad format, Facebook is allowing its advertisers to sponsor certain actions, particularly check-ins. So for example if someone checks into Starbucks, their friends might see it as an ad with their friends’ name affiliated with the brand.

Four specific user actions including ‘likes’, ‘check-ins’, ‘actions’ within custom applications and ‘Page posts’ will all be different ways for brands to be promoted through the sponsored stories.

Sharing generates real cash; according to the ticketing website Eventbrite.com, a user sharing an Eventbrite.com event on Facebook drives on average 11 visits to the site and $2.52 (£1.60) in sales, a Linkedin share equals $0.90 and a Twitter share equals $0.43.

What’s next for Social Commerce?

There seems to be no sign that this phenomenon is going to slow down, with the recent announcement that popular online clothing retailer ASOS have launched a fully transactional Facebook shop, allowing people to buy its entire range without leaving the social network. The social commerce application will be one of the first to allow people to buy directly from a brand without leaving Facebook, and will surely be the next strategy adopted by many retailers looking to boost their online sales. Apps such as Payvment and Highwire make this a plausible option for SME’s, giving them the ability to integrate eCommerce in to their social media page.

The concept of Social Proof has not changed. If we know that one of our friends or a member of our family has bought or started using a particular product or service (and is happy with it), we are much more likely to be comfortable with doing the same thing ourselves. What has changed is the way we go about sharing and being recommended. With several new technologies in their infancy, there is no way of knowing which direction it will take, but based on current trends it’s going to get more personal, and both brands and consumers will become more comfortable with sharing their information.

Co-written by Harry Clark

Social Media Week London, is part of a global conference happening in six cities across three continents from 1-5th Feb 2010, building on the success of the inaugural New York event in 2009.

The week consists of numerous gatherings looking at various different aspects of social media with panel discussions, networking, tweetups and presentations about social media.

With over 15 events already confirmed and more being added, there’s something for everyone, below are a select few, but check out the full schedule.

Panels, discussions & presentations:

• Media Camp London 4
• Understanding Social Graph Optimisation
• SMWBe2camp 2010
• Chinwag Live – Show Me the Money
• Social Media Monday
• PR Breakfast Briefings by 33 Digital, Porter Novelli & Speed Comms
• LSS London: The Science of Social Media
• thupr: Social Media Measurement & Monitoring
• media140: Third Sector and the Real-Time Social Web

Meetups, tweetups, networking:

• Social Media Monday
• Twespians
• SMW Be2camp Cheesy Tweet-up
• Recruitment Tweetup #RTU
• Social Media Week: London – Tuttle Club

There are events covering all corners of the social media world, from business and marketing to charities, architecture, theatre and media.

Keep your eyes peeled for more events we’ll be tweeting (naturally) as they get added:

» Social Media Week London Schedule
» Social Media Week London on Twitter

In the last 2 days there has been much chatter about the fact that Skittles made the mainpage of their  site a Twitter feed. The idea presumably being that it would pick up conversations about the sweets going on “out-there” in inter-web land.  And “be where the conversation is” in the most literal sense of the phrase.

But there is little actual chatter about Skittles out there and that was proved by the conversational activity this feed actually picked up on. Rather than great chat about the amazing colours (or playing skittles in english country pubs) the feed has picked up conversations about whether what Skittles were doing was actually going to bring value to the brand – that and some slightly malicious activity that was designed to publish complete rubbish on the Skittles homepage through tagging tweets with the skittles tag which had nothing to do with the brand or Twitter. So now everything has descended into a bizarre self-referential confusion of brand consideration, social media discussion and randomness.

What did they expect? The problem is that if you start a really bad conversation offline people will change the subject but online they will want to know why you started that bad discussion and they will rip it apart, because they don’t have to see you face to face – whether you are a brand or a person.

It was a brave action to take and no doubt has garnered the brand lots of publicity but only if you believe no publicity is bad publicity. When we recommend social media to our clients we have to think very carefully about the type of conversation that will ensue and how whether it’s actually relevant to our market. And be sure that we aren’t just jumping on the bandwagon.

Under each brand name it categorises what social media marketing they are using and links to their site(s). Handy!

There are mostly American brands on there but the things they are doing are not all off-the-scale for sophistication. Plenty of time to play catch-up. Many do blogs, micro blogs, social network membership, online video, wikis, podcasts, brand monitoring and widgets. Nothing we can’t all use / produce for our clients.

The list gave me some insights. Did you know that BA has a Twitter account? And IBM publishes its corporate strategy for social computing?

Peter Kim compiled the list with help from a lot of very influential friends. Last updated in October 2008.

Why do I ask? Well the reason is that I’m speaking at the Interactive Marketing Show in Manchester Nov 08 and will be talking about some of the best online campaigns and latest trends. So, if your agency or someone you admire in our wonderful industry has done something remarkable recently, then let me know and if it is truly outstanding then I’ll showcase it!

I look forward to hearing from you…

Mirage

For more info about the show: http://www.interactivemarketingshow.com/

It’s relevant to the BIMA community since the space is shaping up into a very interesting landscape from an advertising, monetisation and application development perspective, and BIMA members (likely to have some knowledge here) are well placed to benefit.

We make online advertising (in fact a lot of online advertising as Interpublic Group’s largest digital agency here in the UK, as I was reminded recently) in order to deliver as many messages as we can to targeted audiences to get them to remember the brand name or to click on to be more engaged and buy something.

We also develop communities, often by association with passions, football, tennis, online gaming, web developers, no less, and this is where the world of social computing is so challenging. Which is better – to run a campaign of x impressions that gets 0.02 click through (say 300 people) or to write a widget that is downloaded by 300 people. The answer is probably both are relevant, but do a different job. If the end game is engagement, time spent with the brand, or memorability, what’s your vote?

Think about it. Write about it. It’s a good debate.

Read the full post.

Apologies for cross-posting from my personal blog, fortunately there’s only a small overlap of readers on both. I wrote a post a few weeks ago, complaining about Yahoo!’s stupid integrated registration system. I was so pissed off with the login process I decided to can my use of MyBlogLog and Upcoming. Fortunately I’ve never had a problem with Flickr.

However, since removing the mugshots of my readers from my blogs, I’ve felt like something has been missing. So, I’ve managed to sort out my login details and Kamrul has reinstalled the MyBlogLog widget (Recent Readers).

What is MyBlogLog?

MyBlogLog provides a widget that you can place on your blog. MyBlogLog users who then visit your blog are automatically added to the “community” of visitors and you will usually see an image and/or text with the visitor’s user name. Only the most recent visitors MyBlogLog members, will show within the MyBlogLog widget (found on the sidebar to the right).

If you have a MyBlogLog account and remain logged in, your face will automatically appear in the widget on every blog you visit (assuming they have the widget installed – TechCrunch also has one). I didn’t really care for it that much until I had it removed from my blogs. For some strange reason I missed seeing (some) of the faces of my community. I say ’some’ because only a small fraction of people have an account – not because I don’t want to see some people

I’ve gone a step further than most blogs. MyBlogLog users who leave comments also get their mugshot displayed beside their comment. It would be fun to encourage more to join.

Setup an account now and join the community.

You’ve gotta embrace social media tools, techniques and importantly, communities, before you can even think about taking on BIMA’s public relations. So, please make sure you’re on Twitter and are a member of the BIMA Facebook group before getting in touch. Why? Well, if you need me to answer that question you’re not right for the job

I have quite a few PR people following me on twitter so this approach shouldn’t limit us to the extent that we don’t find anyone. Well, I hope not anyway.

Who we’re looking for

We’re looking for a freelancer or small agency to work on a contra basis. So, in return for your amazing craftsmanship with words and untouchable contacts within traditional media, we’ll help raise your own profile. You’ll also have the opportunity to educate industry via BIMA, with respect to the new PR world we live in today. You could even use your work with BIMA as a case study. That’s it. More defined requirements should actually come from you.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank immediate future for its amazing contribution to BIMA over the years. Katy Howell in particular has been personally very helpful to me over the past couple of years. Thanks Katy. Katy is of course, on twitter. You’re probably wondering why we’re looking for someone else if immediate future did such a great job. The answer is simple, Katy did such a good job that her company has grown quickly, winning so many clients that they felt it was time to pass on the baton.

Please DM me to get the conversation going. I look forward to hearing from you soon. You’ll first need to follow me on twitter before being able to DM me.

I wrote a post a while back on my personal blog, highlighting the lack of journalists on Twitter. Today, thanks to Marie Boran (AKA PixieVonDust), I read with great interest that Charles Cooper from CNET is of the same opinion. Charles goes as far as to say

Out of curiosity, I drew up a list of 55 technology journalists to find out how many use Twitter, arguably one of the most important social-media technologies on the scene.

If you’re not familiar with Twitter, think of it as a conversational tool come micro blogging platform from a technology perspective. I also think of it as a community of early adopters, of whom, some are very influential with a passion for sharing. It’s a community you can communicate with via the Web site, desktop client or mobile phone (either by SMS or application). So, it’s very accessible. You can subscribe to alerts too, which means you get notified any time someone ‘tweets’ a message.

Twitter has almost replaced my RSS reader completely and to a degree, my reliance on Google to find stuff. If I want to find out the latest gossip, ask for advice on how to use something new, or find the latest world news, I head straight for Twitter.com and scroll through all the conversations for the past few hours.

I was in New York recently to take part in a panel discussion about Mobile TV. Whenever I wanted a recommendation for a restaurant within walking distance, or the address of a specific clothes shop, I turned to my Twitter community. Within minutes I had the answers to any question I asked. Some people went as far as to Google restaurants and read the reviews before making recommendations to me.

A couple of people actually few from California to New York to meet me after connecting on Twitter. It doesn’t get better than that.

So, if you’re not already on there, setup an account now and search for people you know. Check out who they follow as they’re likely to be connected to people you know. Don’t subscribe to too many people at once. Make sure some of them become a follower of you or you’ll end up looking like a stalker, and nobody will follow you. Don’t limit yourself to only people you know. It’s a fantastic way to get to know new people around the world too. Are you on Twitter already?

Read the full article on CNET.

Connect to me on Twitter let me know if you’ve followed me after reading this post so I know where you’ve come from.

See you at the Breakfast Bites on Tuesday.

The most interesting conversation to come out of SXSW for me was Sarah Lacy’s unfortunate interview with Mark Zuckerberg. Paul Carr (by the way, welcome to Twitter Paul!) captured the moment succinctly

Sarah Lacy (SL): “Thank you – thank you all so much. Now let’s hear it for this guy – Mark Zuckerberg everyone! So, I wanna start by asking – as I did in my book – why do you think Facebook… which I use like all the time – is so great?”

Mark Zuckerberg (MZ): “Well…”

SL: “What I mean is – what is it about Facebook that has attracted not just me but millions of other people like me to sign up?”

MZ: “Terrorism.”

SL: “I totally agree. Can you say more?”

MZ: “Sure…”

SL: “Can you believe this guy? Wow – I mean his answers are so short – seriously I think he’s the biggest loser I’ve ever interviewed. Hey Mark, can I tell the story about the first time I allowed you to be interviewed?”

MZ: “Sure… I guess.”

SL: “Ok, so, like, I’m interviewing Mark – and we’ve been talking for like twenty hours and Mark was like ‘I need to pee’ and I was like ‘that’s so interesting and sexy’, tell me more and he’s like ‘no I really need to pee’ and I’m like talking about my book and like the next thing I know he’s peed all over the floor and it’s like so cute and hilarious.”

MZ: “Thanks for sharing that.”

(Audience break into spontaneous standing ovation, in awe at Zuckerberg’s razor sharp retort. Fat guy at the front screams and faints. Twitter crashes.)

SL: “Ok, so getting back to Facebook, I wanna ask you about privacy and Facebook Beacon.”

MZ: “Ok, well, let me say that Beacon isn’t something we’re really focussed on as a company right now – I mean it’s like not something I’ve even really heard of. What people don’t understand is that it was developed by our platform team and not our advertising team – so really it’s not advertising at all. I mean, in the Lebanon, kids are actually using it to interact with Coca Cola which – and this is unbelievable – makes them realise what they’re missing by not being in America and that’s why there will never be another nine eleven. But we’re not the only company delivering world peace through invasive advertising, we’re just one of the people in the space. We want to focus on building the platform for world peace and let others build on that.”

SL: “Ok, stop talking now. Jeez! It seems to me anyway, that Beacon is not really the issue. In fact, I shouldn’t have even mentioned it. The big issue is the news feed, what can you say about that?”

MZ: “Well, it’s just something we’re not really focussed on having to explain right now.”

SL: “Ok, that’s fine. Now – last night you told me you were gay and like to fuck squirrels – can I tell that story?”

MZ: “Er…”

SL: “Ok, well, I guess I should have let you make that announcement, gosh darn I’m so ditzy (giggles). So what’s it like to be rich and to have journalists, like, really want to sleep with you?”

MZ: “It’s just not something I’m focussed on right now.”

SL: “How about if I do this?”

(Lacey begins to fellate Zuckerberg but, remarkably, is able to keep talking….)

SL: “Well, sure, that makes it so much easier.”

(Three rows of fat guys at the front of the room orgasm as one at the incredible comedic timing of Mark ‘Bill Hicks’ Zuckerberg as Lacey switches position for a reach around.)

SL: “Ok, well, that’s all we have time for – if you want to know more about how awesome – but dorky – this rich guy is, I guess you’ll all have to read my book. It also has the story about how I famously poured water into Serge Brin’s laptop on my show at Yahoo.com. That was sooo funny. And when I hyped Kevin Rose on the front cover of Business Week and then sold a book to Penguin on the back of it about overhyped web 2.0 companies. Don’t worry, Mark, I’ll give you a discount. And I’ll even throw in a copy for your girlfriend. What’s her name?”

MZ: “Uh…”

SL: “Ok, great! Well thank you very much Mark – it’s been a really insightful conversation on one point five billion levels. And, to the audience, I just wanna say thank you both for staying.”

Session ends.

Paul’s original post from which I stole all of his content can be found here. Please subscribe to his blog. He’s hilarious!

As a result of the poor interview, Mark called for a second interview which Jemima Kiss articulates very well.

To his credit. Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged that a lot of people were frustrated by the wasted opportunity of yesterday’s keynote interview with Sarah Lacy. He did the interview on the condition that she was the interviewer, so whose to blame there?

In the rather more tropical surroundings of a safari-themed bar, Zuckerberg announces that he thought he’d drop by “because yesterday’s keynote just wasn’t enough fun”. That media training has really been paying off.

“One of the big pieces of feedback from yesterday was that people didn’t get a chance to ask enough questions. People were more interesting in product development and technical questions – I’m really interested in those issues like scalability but we thought we’d open up for another 20-30 minutes today.”

So in the midst of the developer garage, what did his home crowd really want to know?

Data portability is a big issue. Zuckerberg said that he wouldn’t necessarily commit to signing up to the same open standards as the other big social networks. “Beacon is a first iteration of that approach to help people share information. We are philosophically aligned with this openness and efficiency in the community but, at the same time, we don’t know what other people are doing and whether our policties are aligned.”

Robert Scoble got kicked off the site (albeit for just one day) because he appeared to be scraping data, rather than ’sharing it’.

Balancing the advantges of data portability with people’s privacy concerns is tricky: “We think sharing information is good, which is why we started this whole platform thing. But these are some of the questions that need to be worked out.”

Music: Is music a focus for the site? Not especially. The site didn’t predict how causal games like Scrabulous would take off (Zuckerberg plays it with this grandparents, aw). The great thing about having a platform is we don’t need to be editorial.

“We don’t need to say what will be the right applications because the market will sort that out for us, and the people that build the great products and applicatiosns will be able to build the great companies.”

It’s a very clever business model, because it lets the users determine the trends and leaves all the R&D to external companies. Nice.

Spam: Facebook will be cutting down on application spam, as he said yesterday: applications will be encouraged to focus on the level of proper engagement they have with their users rather than the number of installs, and the more popular apps will be able to send more invites.

China: He also said that he doesn’t look at time spent on the site as an important metric: Zuckerberg thinks that, like Google, the site should make communication more efficient and help people do what they need to do.

Facebook is looking at the issues of moving the business into China, said a very confident and relaxed Zuckerberg. He’s very open about it forom the start: “Making sure that people’s private information is private is a really important thing for us to do,” he said, explaining that there are only really two options in China; either have the government censor your site and impair the performance of traffic to it inside the country if it doesn’t like you, or have servers inside the country which will be shut down if you don’t follow their policies.

“There are ways to position these things make decisions and set them up to create minimal exposure,” he said. Now that China is on the verge of overtaking the US as the world’s biggest internet market, this strategy is increasingly important.

And has it been a strain for you, Mark, being under such scrutiny because of the success of Facebook? He’s now the world’s youngest billionaire, according to Forbes.

“That’s an interesting topic for a develop garage! I have a small group of really good friends and going through this whole experience of building the company has often been a strain but has helped build interesting friendships.”

Jemima’s original post from which I mercilessly stole her content can be found here. Jemima is also one of the few bloggers that I’m subscribed to, so make sure you’re tuned in. She has her finger well placed on the UK digital pulse.

I’m not sure I like either of Mark’s two options to expand into China. I don’t like the idea of filtering content on behalf of the government, full stop. But what’s the alternative?

Also, check out Rebecca Caroe‘s post on the BIMA blog about panel put together to discuss online advertising for newbies.

Oldtimers may remember Fray from very old web.  Derek started it in 1996 as a live story telling site.  Each story ended with the question “when has this happened to you?” .  This started his interest in community online and how to invite participation.  

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro” Hunter S Thompson

Today the web enables people to get exposure that used to the exclusive preserve of adults, authorities and experts.  So what can you do if you want crowds on your site?

Content owners have 3 lies they tell themselves when confronted with free content:

1.  Everyone on the net is an idiot. 

2 Good stuff is too hard to find

3. You can’t make any money.

1.     Everyone on the net is an idiot… for past 10 years the mainstream media only focused on this.  But refute it using Google – value based on number of links to pages… proxy for votes and voters are important. Kim Pedersen’s Backyard Monorail – 300 feet of track costing $4000.   He shares what he knows for free – created a community of shared interest.  Wikipedia because it was the first makes it a bad site to copy, now.  But the small community of editors who do the most (0.7% of users) are key to small edits/spell checkers (tend the  Drafted Postsgarden) and new users who post substantive new articles.  

2.    Good stuff is too hard to find. Traditional ways of finding good stuff is human editors (magazines / newspapers), non-traditional editors took this and applied to the web (Amazon where users were reviewers) and moderators.  Computers took on the task (text search), Google’s page rank (more sophisticated weighted by incoming link) and technorati.  But the middle path of hybrid using both human and computers is where most of the opportunity lies today (Flickr interestingness, community vote and best of both).  Flickr algorithm is voting by actions (going to look at photos).  Displayed by leader board by day. This created a competition and people trying to gain the system.  Later they made a 7 day version, recent randomised of 9 images. 

The Wisdom of crowds – the number 1 book to read.  It is about how people can use groups to be smart.  Summarised as selfish behaviour aggregated for a common good.  The interaction is simple – key.  Simple questions.  “did you like this?”.  You need diversity across the spectrum to make this work. But selfishness is important – design for selfishness [we think our products are awesome and anyone who disagrees is an idiot!]  High on our own supply.  If you can create a desire for the user to put their voice onto something you may succeed.  Rewards can be ego or money.

Assignment Zero using wiki software collaboration with Wired Magazine – crowdsouring stories. The crowd didn’t want to participate by writing stories.  So they changed to asking for research… asked people to sign up for interviews (instant response!).  Doing an interview was a simple task compared to writing something.  Read a list of people and decide to take action by asking a few questions… their editors condensed into print-worthy text.   Using crowdsourcing as a cost-saving measure doesn’t work.  Communities must be cultivated, respected and managed if they are to create economic value” Jeff Howe who coined the phrase crowdsourcing.

3.    You can’t make any money.  Threadless is a great example – t shirt store with no designers, just an interface.  The best get printed, bought. A trusted middle man.  Golden tag in 1 shirt per 1000 (Willy Wonker thing), member forum for people who’ve won in the past… cultivating a winner class.  Have a plan with good answers ready for when you get ‘busted’! 

Derek's new startup Pixish – bringing the threadless happiness to any image based contest.  Cautionary tales – Yahoo games Wii site…. create niche sites pulling stories, photos and stuff tagged Wii including a strip of photos from Flickr.  They didn't’ give the users any way of opting out… all sorts of things tagged Wii including Yahoo sucks, baby weeing etc…  It wasn’t a legal reason.  Because there was no clear way to opt out users rebelled.  Copious opt ins and opt outs are needed.  Need a group opt in.  GM Tahoe Apprentice Campaign.  User generated content to make an advert…. but users put their own captions on “Waaa? No iPod plug-in??” and you could only use their existing photos and videos… you could add text over the video.  “We paved the prairies” and “The ultimate padded cell!  “Global warming isn’t a pretty SUV ad”, “The Earth is now your bitch!”.  They designed for their own selfishness not the participant.  Narrow scope of creativity – text only.  Content was greedy – couldn’t export to any other place….YouTube or your site.  The audience was wrong – this should have been just GM owners not the entire internet!  Cf Saturn owners club.  But it worked.. really well. the microsite had 600k visitors in 3 weeks with an average 9 minutes online and many visited Chevvy.com too which was what they wanted.  

Community is Grown not built.  “building community” is for architects not online.  

How to do it.  5 steps

1. Give people tools they want
2. Trust them to do good
3. Reward good contributions
4. Punish bad contributions
5. Expect the unexpected

Punishment isn’t deleting swear words but limiting the effect of problematic users (timeouts, community boot outs for 1 hour voted by half the users).  Geotagging from Flickr – on day 1 Iceland people came together to spell the word “Fuck” on their photos….. a lot of photos were needed on the map.  A collaboration in real time. 

Weird things will happen.  Goal is to channel in the right areas and then respond appropriately. 

Slides on www.powazek.com

Questions

how to incentivise forums.  Offering swag etc.  This is valid but ego stroking can be more effective.  Look at whether it is solving a problem and do people want to talk to each other.  Member of the week programme.  Mail people t shirts and ask users what they really want.

What to do with non-winning entries on Pixish.  You can delete at any time.  You own it.

Mixing pro and amateur stuff in a mashup site – concerns about quality.  Not designed to replace pros but to bring opportunity to a wider scale – meritocracy if the system works well.  

Creative commons is a great idea but has ‘kinks’ one of the key issues are publishers who don’t understand it.  www.moveon.com online aggregator of angst!

Rewards that aren't bribes.  Start with payment in kind and then move onto cash when you can afford it.  Not offensively low e.g. $10.  

Does online trading work to encourage amateurs.  There is more talent out there then there is opportunity.  

Overview: Marketers can no longer interrupt users with advertisements and other materials thanks to technology advancements like TIVO. Now, we need to engage users.

Here are some helpful guidelines:

A. You have to be about ONE Thing. Currently, marketers create a list of features and benefits for a new product, which makes people research specs. Need to have 1 thing that you focus on that people can't research. Eg: Apple's one thing: STYLE. In a marketplace where style wasn't important, Apple made style a key factor. Style was a good choice in the 1 thing, because it's personal and emotional. B2B marketers need to capture people's hearts.

B. Once you have that 1 thing – Attract people by controversy, vision, interaction, and/or simple tools
1. Controversy. This starts the dialog. Eg: Bob Garfield at NPR — comcastmustdie.com — got a lot of attention for him and got comcast to take action.
2. Be the visionary in your business. Discuss future services, technologies, etc. Get users to keep coming back to you.
3. Interactions (polls, surveys, rank). Do anything to get your users to "push a button."
4. Have a simple tool. Eg: Hubspot.com — website grader — you vs. competitor. If you don't get a good grade, use hubspot for SEO. Eg: 4-hour work week –lifestyle design quota. If you don't get a good answer, you should buy the book.

C. Create Together
Use wikis as both a marketing and community tool. Have users help with marketing. Also, let users solve problems with the company. Users will get involved if end result will help them.

D. Build Street Cred
Eg: Yvon Chouinard – Patagonia (uses real customers in ads)
Eg: E-books. Give e-books away. Creative Commons is great because users will brand you for you.

E. Think User Experience
Nike Plus — tracks runs and uploads data to iPod and the Nike Community. Brings people back to Nike over and over. Consumers constantly create new data not Nike.

F. Spread Ideas
Word-of-Mouth is still young in marketing process. It's about being relative, creative, and humor. It must also provide info that people didn't have before.

G. Choose Strategic Path
Choose what media fits your value and customer base. If your client doesn't want to advertise on mobile phones, don't make them.

Indirectly – sell yourself as a consultant, book deal, selling a product, training, workshops, conference. 

What works – every blog is different.  Experiment.  Adsense is a good entry level way.  
WP – my business took over my blog!  She started how to document a start-up from home so blogged it.  Three months later the blog became the start-up and she scrapped the other idea!  The link from DR grew her stats.  She learnt how to make money off the blog via ProBlogger.  She is a trained life coach and sold herself as this online and this was the fastest way to get revenue off the blog but her goal was to make money off the traffic.  Last autumn she realised sehe needed help and so started a blog network to the site (7 new ones).  Each blog is growing differently – kids activities (search engines bring readers), dads blog (no search engine success).  Creating compelling sticky content people want to come ‘hang out’ but they don’t want to click on ads.  Creating OK content designed to make people to clieck on an ad is different.  Know your goals for the blog.

Experience working with the ad networks?  Experimented – some direct sales is a lot of work – need to be a true salesperson and set ratecard and have your own ad server.  This is the most profitable… big advertisers need 1m pages per month before they’ll look at you.  Ad network is bread and butter – real girls media.  They act a bit as a broker and represent the site in their proposals to pitch big brands.  You don’t know where the income levesl will be.  So I sell text links and affiliate advertising to fill the gaps.  Diversity is key – don’t rely on one means.  
JB – How do you work with newcomers?  When choosing an ad network what should you consider? Their role is to be a single point of contact for advertisers to represent sites.  Blog community and news sites have difft needs at different stages.  “your ad here” code which you could buy online with credit card and emailed the blogger to approve it.  That was how Adbrite started.
You need to decide if it is about money or control.  At the beginning control is imp;rotant – find the ad networks that give you the opportunity to choose and view the ads that will run on your stie.  Look for a network that will have transparency so the advertisers can see they are running on YOUR site.  They need to see that you are contributing to their programme.  They may pay more.  
The key to adbrite is segmenting – content, quality, original, design, user generated content, then segemented into elite, premium tiers. Some advertisers want quality sites and performance advertisers want volume.  
Online tools – service is the big differentiator between different ad networks.  Work with your account manager – what are tips for generating more revenue.  Placement is number one way to grow.  Internet is not about interruptive advertising and so different from other media.  Google heatmap for advertisers is worth reading.

RC – Affiliate marketing – where does it fit?  It is a revenue share arrangement where you get paid for referral traffic that converts – a % of the sale.  Two distinctions – appeals to the long term relationship between the two parties.  You know your community and purpose of your site and you know where the affiliate fits into your site.  Both parties have equal stakes.  It is a long term job.  Find a good relationship between what you want to do online and how it translfates into the world of e commerce.  You post whatever you want (banner, text, data feed, snippet generator) wherever you want to display it and for how long.  You control look and feel.  In direct media determine what I display where when I do my own adverts.  

Which programme to choose?  Each company has a different take on how they manage affiliates.  Some are restrictive as it’s a representation of our brand.  We see them as an outside salesforce like the pre-internet Tupperware programme!  Referrals – it needs to make ‘sense’ to both parties.

How do you choose who to work with?  The elective programmes are the best to be in.  They have to have a value ad to the audience for us comparison shopping has worked well.  Makes it easy to solve the customer’s need.  Reviews of product allows an affiliate to give their view.  Or content about where you use the gear e.g. route planning.  Find something you are passionate about and look at the merchants that represent that.  
Intenret sales spilling out into the real world?  We plan to use events offline to allow affiliates to take their tracking mechanism offline.  Athletes at the events whether competing or not, branded pre-printed post cards or business cards with a link to the tracking source or a specific landing page… unique to them and allows credit to referrals off that page.  
WP – you have to go to the affiliate manager and ask for this – custom coupons codes and special landing pages…..

What other things do you need to keep in mind to stay up to date?
Newbie picky about ads running on their sites.  We give you the choice but the flashy ads convert better than the big brand CPM.  CPA – cost per action/acquisition.  CPM- cost per thousand.  CPC = cost per click.
The ad networks give advertisers code that goes onto their website after a user has completed the action wanted e.g. sign up to brand.  We track that conversion using the code back to the original site where the user clicked / viewed.  This allows advertisers to manage their budgtets.  Being picky limits you.  We used to group by vertical sector – now more about user targeting – geographic / age / stage.  Some pay a premium for this.  
RC – affiliate managers want to engage with sites – work on the relationship.  Provide a resource for your readers through your content.  
DR – Do as much tracking as possible on ad conversions crazyegg free tooll creates a heat map from your site.  Know where ads convert and where not…. use as a negotiating tool when you know this information.  Do surveys of readerships, age, geographic, buyers / researching.
WP – it can be frustrating to gather this information when you are a new advertiser.  It takes time to learn this… it is valuable so spend the time on this.   Put a text ad from adsense for her services within the copy of the blog…. worked for her services not others.

Question:

What about Disclosure and affiliate links?
DR – it varies from site to site.  One gets a lot of search engine traffic – for digital cameras. I have a site-wide disclosure for this.  For Problogger I put “aff” to show it’s an affiliate so reader knows.  The links perform better when I do give disclosure because my readers like me.  
WP – I never used to do disclosure because I do everything for free.  But I realised that readers don’t assume that – they assume the worst.  I try to put more disclosure in place.  

How do the networks pick the affiliates?
disclosure is important for your readership.

PPV or pay per post?
DR – I don't write comment for payment.  I understand why some write a review and get paid for it.  it depends on your site.  For me people question your motives. Transparency is important.  I see anything on the site saying something about ME and I want people to come back for years to come.  if it is helpful and relevant to your audience.
WP – I separate reviews from comment content.  readers don't like these two things mixed up in one place on my blog.  People don't respond in the same way.
RC – GuruReview – encourage reviewers to tell it like it is.  Write it but say what is the alternative solution for it.  There are lots of alternatives.  You can turn this into a positive.

Tracking and measurement – how do you gauge success and improve the overall mix?
B – there are two types of measurement the performance of the ad – number of clicks and who signed up / purchased.  And a quality metric – think about the domain name used for your blog for big name advertisers ask  Can you show me a site list – names that are clean, professional looking but they never visit the sites!  Keep user generated content quality and looking good.  
WP – there is google analytics, hittail , crazyegg .  I found it effective Pro MyBlogLog to see what people clicked on.  You pay $3 per month to get this.  I learn a lot about what people click on.  I learnt a lot from this – what I am writing on.
How does it work when you join as an affiliate?  When you apply to join a network there is a list of all the merchants and you apply to each individually.  When accepted you get access to all their ads and codes.  Research Google for affilitate programmes in your topic.  And you can go direct.  Networks – commission junction, linkshare and performix, are the big ones.  Learn your niche when choosing.   ADify.com is a network of networks and you can go there to find your niches.  UI not so good – Martha Stewart runs through there.

WP – To sell ads directly you need about 500 viewers per day to get a smaller advertiser interested.  DR suggests putting ads on from day one so that users are used to it from the start.  When you go small target small advertisers.  It created the culture.
Local search is becoming very popular and so there are probably good local ad networks.  Cenveo is a local Chicago network. 
 

Five thousand four hundred people turn up, and I was lucky enough to share a ‘power session panel’ (try saying that with six San Miguels inside you) with blog Gods Shel Israel and Jeremiah Owyang training about 600 Intel people about new media marketing technique. Shel co-authored the book Naked Conversations with Robert Scoble and is good opinionated company, and Jeremiah is Forrester’s top commentator on social media. He’s also pretty handy with the cam as you can see here.

Enough name dropping already (there were plenty of other super people to meet and Paul of course twitters with Shel tous les temps) – the gist of the sessions was healthy debate about whether social media is relevant to a firm like Intel. My take on it is simple. Social media helps you do two very important things. 1. Listen to customers. Those that don’t are dying and those that won’t will die. And 2. Listen to yourselves. If it doesn’t sound credible to you, how can you expect them to believe it?

Luv

A

There are two points I’d like to comment on, both have been inspired by recent conversations on Twitter. I won’t name names because there are too many to list and I don’t have the time to do all the hyperlinking right now (sorry guys).

Conversations taking place on Twitter

1.

Facebook is dead. Twitter is the new Facebook. Facebook has had its day.

My response.

Facebook isn’t dead. It might have appeared to be dead to Twitter users because most of their friends on Facebook were quiet over the Christmas period. That’s because Twitter users are a minute fraction of Facebook users. Twitter is mostly made up of extremely early adopting geeks. Most Facebook users would have been on leave over the Christmas period and not sad enough (like me!) to sign on every ten minutes.

2.

I’m sick of Facebook spamming me. Facebook is full of SPAM. I hate the SPAM on Facebook.

My response.

Facebook does not SPAM you. Your ‘friends’ SPAM you. If you don’t want to receive updates, or requests to join events and groups, tell your friends to stop sending invites. If your friends don’t listen to you, remove them from your friends list.

If you don’t want people to write on your wall, remove it, or make it visible to a select few.

Facebook is nothing more than a technology/platform. Your friends are the ones you should look at, not Facebook

What do you think?

Feel free to connect to me on Twitter.

Feel free to connect to me on Facebook.