Below the Line

The Beauty of Gen X

A study by Pinterest found that Gen X pinners are actively looking for beauty ideas. 

• 40% want to prevent signs of aging (that seems low!)
• One in three spend $50 or more per month on beauty
• 70% want to try different skin care products and routines
• 78% want to learn about new beauty brands and products

What does this mean for beauty brands and retailers? In terms of the marketing mix, I suggest targeting Gen X with paid ads while focusing top of funnel organic demand gen on the Millennial audience. Test which platforms and creative formats resonate best with Gen X for your brand.

 

 

Facebook thinks I have too many friends

Bigger is not necessarily better

Facebook is now apparently encouraging users to delete friends.

Possibly, they are realizing people with too many friends are not seeing relevant posts from their "real" friends in their newsfeed. With their rollout of Graph Search, connections with only "real" friends will be even more important.

This is the second time in recent weeks a social network has come out with a bigger-is-not-better policy. Niche site A Small World closed to new members to focus on "the integrity of their membership".

Questions to ponder:

Could this be the end of vanity metrics, like the raw number of Twitter followers (rather than engaged followers in the target audience)?

How will this trend to reduce network size impact Klout scores?

 

Related:
Niche social networking site A Small World to close to new members
Related to vanity metrics/buying Twitter followers: 4 ways to get Twitter followers

Niche social networking site A Small World to close to new members

Niche social networking site A Small Word announced today that they are closing to new members on March 1.

A Small World is an invitation-only site that targets affluent customers. ASW already has a relatively small membership base and they appear to want to get smaller.

With MySpace recently attempting to reinvent itself, it will be interesting to see what direction A Small World takes.

How social is driving the evolution of CRM

This OMMA Social session attempted to answer two questions: How do you prioritize, coordinate, and manage engagement points ranging from your Facebook page to email to the in-store experience? And how do you evolve your product-centric organization to one that is customer-centric?

Presenters  

Brett Billick, Director, CRM, Virgin America

Matthew Howland, VP, TIBCO Loyalty Lab

John Zell, VP Global CRM Solutions, Razorfish

Razorfish, Loyalty Lab, and Virgin America discussed results of their proprietary research found in Liminal: 2011 Customer Engagement Report. In their research, they confirmed what every CRM marketer should already know: “Engagement isn’t just about a channel. It is about the consumer’s relationship with a brand, his or her ability to choose how and when to engage, and the value each channel represents.”

Razorfish asked the question “How do we take a bottom-up, customer-centric approach to prioritize channels?” Their answer was to define six Engagement Elements that should be the starting point for brand interactions with consumers.

1. Value - what a customer feels when he knows he can expect a company to go out of its way to support his needs and knows the company values his business. 
2. Efficiency - when a company respects a customer's time and energy, and promptly addresses his needs.  
3. Trust - when customers feel confident that a company is credible, and will handle engagements honestly, sincerely and transparently.
4. Consistency - when customers feel a company is uniform in things such as policy, attitude, communication, and messaging.
5. Relevance - when a customer feels messaging from a company is interesting and applicable to their needs.
6. Control – when a customer can determine if, when and how a company will communicate with him or her (opt in and opt out).

Brett Billick of Virgin America said they have renewed their focus on the traditionally engaged. For Virgin, email remains the 'bread and butter' channel for interacting with Virgin's high value customers. They endeavor to consistently improve based on customer feedback in order to ensure that they are sending the right and relevant content. An important note was that they found protecting the cadence of their email communications improved their metrics.

Virgin has a different communication stream through their social media channels. They serve the “socially savvy” with special promos. Though their socially connected users are a small percentage of their user base, they are highly valuable customers. For instance, they’ve found that customers who check in to their flights on a social networking site have a dramatically higher spend than their base loyalty program members.

Can Madison Avenue step up to the social plate?

At MediaPost's Online Media, Marketing and Advertising (OMMA) Global Conference yesterday, the website's Editor-in-Chief Joe Mandese led a panel discussion about whether ad agencies are positioned to "tackle the opportunities and challenges" of social media.

At issue was whether the big guys can stave off competition of specialist agencies - something the industry failed to do during the first stages of the digital revolution which witnessed the birth of pure-play digital agencies and the created a major fragmentation in the way that clients' marketing and advertising needs were managed.

Moderator   Joe Mandese, Editor in Chief, MediaPost Panelists   Bant Breen, CEO, Reprise Media Marita Scarfi, CEO, Organic Joshua Spanier, Director of Communication Strategy, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners Antony Young, CEO, Optimedia International U.S., Inc.

Play nice!

Antony Young argued that agencies must partner to adequately navigate through the social space - whether that is with their clients or other agencies.

“Social media isn't just this land grab that one agency ought to own. Everyone should contribute to how to expand social platforms. One important thing to not do is to say 'this belongs in one agency's court'. Every agency should bring a social prospective to their discipline.”

In regards to whether it is the agency's or the brand's role to manage the presence in social media, Young thinks clients and all their partners all have a role. “Everyone's got to bring a social lens to their role in communications – it shouldn't sit with one person or department.”

Marita Scarfi agreed that social is pervasive within an organization. “This is not just a marketing issue. This is a sales issue. This is a retail channel issue. It touches every part of the organization. We as a single agency can't solve all those problems...You have to partner. You need to know what the best strategy is and then partner with others [on behalf of] your client.”

Learn from the past

Big agencies were slow out of the gate in terms of integrating digital into their core offerings. Many struggled - and still do - with how to fit digital into their corporate structure and processes. I also believe that many agency teams become myopic and spend too much time focusing on the immediate needs of their clients, or the brief that just crossed their desk, rather than spending (unbillable) time learning about new technologies and trends that impact their industry.

“If you look at the creative agencies, they were slow to jump into the digital world. That's why a lot of digital agencies found their footing,” Young pointed out.

Scarfi feels that “it was a big mistake for agencies to separate media and creative into separate agencies...We shouldn't separate media and creative - they inform each other too much.”

Young countered that “collaboration is important [between media and creative agencies]…but you don't have to be sitting in one building.”

Challenges

Brands face more challenges than just figuring out how to manage social media internally (covering the needs of sales, customer service, marketing, etc.) and how to manage their marketing programs across sometimes multiple agencies.

With so many people trying to get a piece of the pie, and everyone from their customer service reps to Board members asking why the brand hasn't tried tactic XYZ with the latest flavor-of-the-month social media channel, brands need the confidence to stay the course.

“Brands have to be fanatical about sticking to their strategy and plan,” noted Joshua Spanier.

Scarfi agreed. “You must start with your brand experience. A lot of tactics get out there and it just makes things worse.”

Creating the right content is a challenge facing agencies.

“Creatives today are not good at coming up with long-form programmatic ideas," according to Spanier. "They are trained in short forms [banners, etc]. That is a challenge for creative agencies.”

“Long-form content is really key to social. That is the big shift for most of us...You have to understand that it's a relationship more so than it ever has been,” added Scarfi.

It's complicated

So CAN the big agencies integrate social? Joshua Spanier's opinion sums up the agency point of view nicely: “It's so complicated, we don't need more silos.”

Related post:
Media agencies face a struggle to stay relevant

 

Photo credits:
Lousy photos taken with my iPhone.
It's Complicated image courtesy of Wikipedia.

. You must start with your brand experience. A lot of tactics get out there and it just makes things worse.

Social media over 30

In response to my blog post “OMG! Can only young people do social media? The Levi's Guy thinks so”, I got a lot of feedback from people in the field who are (gasp) over 30. 

At a Social Media Week panel, Levi's Social Media Marketing Manager advocated putting young digital natives at the center of a brand's social media efforts.

While a few thought that a brand’s social media team should include people of all ages, some thought age should not be a factor at all.

What’s age got to do with it?
“Age has nothing to do with it,” according to Candace Kuss (@CandaceKuss), Interactive Creative Planner at Hill & Knowlton.

“Digital native is a lazy term. Handling issues in the real world is actually quite an edge when things heat up online. At my agency, we advise clients that the right Community Manager is one that naturally exhibits the same personality and values of the brand itself."

"To me age ain't nothing but a number," added Mike Street, (@streetforce1) a Senior Digital Strategist at Syndicate Media Group. 

"I want people with experience, who can work outside of the box, and who love the digital space...Age has no effect on experience.”

The dangers of inexperience
"Too often we have placed in the hands of the relatively inexperienced too much responsibility and the end product suffers for our clients," reported Global Marketing Executive Barbara Kittridge (@kittrdg)

"We see staff struggle with strategy or with just plain old selling ideas into clients. When met with resistance guys like [The Levi's Guy] say 'Well, they just don't get it.' I say that's B.S. - it means that you didn't do a good enough job explaining and selling in your ideas."

My guess is if you asked him how to monetize and determine the ROI of social media to rationalize any budget investment his jaw would probably drop and he would start to mumble."

Indeed at the Social Media Week panel, when asked about ROI, The Levi's Guy said he thought it was too early to measure the ROI of social media. The other panel members didn't agree.

Talk to ME
Blogger Mike Cliffe Jones (@mikecj) thinks it’s an advantage to have someone IN the target demographic managing a brand’s social media.

"My message to companies is to forget the medium - anyone can be taught how to use it - and focus on the marketing. 

If you want to market to twenty somethings, then maybe the person doing your social media marketing needs to be a twenty something. But if you want to market to me, you'll stand a much greater chance of success if the person doing so is a peer.

It goes much further though - in order to even begin to market via social media, you need to strike up a real one-on-one relationship first, unlike using conventional advertising. That becomes much harder if there is a huge disparity in age and outlook between the two parties." 

Brands should hire based on expertise, not age
"Chronological proximity to the start of a phenomenon doesn't mean expertise. Expertise means expertise," argued Jay Ferrari, Vice President of Content Marketing & Creative Services for PeakTwo.

So if you're looking for someone to manage your social media, ask them what they've done for other brands. Ask them how they think social media should fit into the big picture for the brand. Ask them how they would go about measuring ROI. But don't ask them their age. It shouldn't be relevant. Besides, as any lady over 30 will tell you, it's impolite.

Related post:
OMG! Can only young people do social media? The Levi's Guy thinks so.

 

OMG! Can only young people do social media? The Levi's Guy thinks so.

At today's Social Media Week panel on "Ushering Your Brand into the Social Era", attitudes towards age were revealed.

The panel included Gareth Hornberger, 23 (according to his Twitter bio and ankle-revealing jeans), who started as a contractor at Levi's two years ago.

Now Levi's Social Media Marketing Manager, a.k.a. The Levi's Guy, he advocated "putting young people at the center" as the solution to the challenges brands face in meeting the competing demands of customer care, marketing, PR and other departments. His advice was to "inject digital natives (who he'd already referred to as 'young people') at the core of the process".

Joanne Wan, a Senior Digital Strategist from Ogilvy Public Relations, added that most people who understand social media are younger. 

Though it can be hard finding the right people for the team, the best predictor of success is the candidate's own social footprint, she contended. While I agree that to understand the social media you have to be active in the space, what about the candidate's experience or achievements on behalf of their clients? Successfully promoting your band on Twitter does not necessarily translate into the ability to develop a stategy to communicate effectively on behalf of a global brand.

Joanne also said that the right personality was required - someone who is willing to say "Hey guy who's 10 years older than me, do you need some help with that?".

Looks like The Levi's Guy is just the right fit then - when the moderator inadvertantly referred to him as Blake Cahill, a fellow panelist and Principal at Banyan Branch, he quickly corrected her, pointing out that there was "about 10 years difference" between the two. I'm sure Blake took it as a compliment; based on his LinkedIn profile The Levi's Guy was off by another 8 or 9 years.

What do you think? Do all brands need a twenty-something at the heart of their social media activity?

A Conversation with TypePad

Last night I had the opportunity to go to the TypePad headquarters for a Meetup event. It was great meeting some of the TypePad team members and other bloggers in a small group setting. 

They talked about some of the new TypePad features. For instance, they've now made it easy for TypePad users to integrate Facebook's "Like" feature in their blogs. The new Like functionality is something all brands should be adding to their sites - it basically does what RSS should have done all along, which is make it "really simple" to subscribe to content.

They've also created a new search widget which bloggers can add to their sites - it will search comments, tags and photos as well as posts, which is extremely useful.

However, the most interesting development for brands is TypePad Conversations. Sparked by the insight that blog posts that end with questions get more comments, TypePad Conversations is "a social media question and answer tool designed to spark engaging conversations around interesting topics which bloggers are actively writing about."

 

The TypePad team writes the questions, which select brands/partners can sponsor, and a cadre of bloggers can post the questions on their blogs, thereby engaging their readers in discussions on relevant topics. TypePad aggregates the answers, so you can essentially get input and engagement from across the web in one place. This solves two problems: it is a way for brands to get their names in front of blog readers without using banner ads, and it saves brands from having to rely on their PR team's database of bloggers or troll the blogosphere to find relevant blogs.

In addition to user engagement, TypePad Conversations has the potential to become a useful market research tool.

 

TypePad Product ManagersMatt Jacobs and Kimmie Nguyen, caught totally by surprise. That's Hubert Nguyen (no relation) from Ubergizmo.com in the background.

The purpose of the TypePad Meetup was not to get marketing people to blog about them - in fact there was only one other marketing person there. However, we did get free pizza and Francis Ford Coppola Wine. The other bloggers ranged from a funny lawyer to a bicycling gourmand.If you want to start a blog with TypePad, please use this link or click on the logo above - I might get a few cents towards my next slice of pizza.

Strategic thinking on PR, IR and media relations in the conversational age

This post about has been stuck in my drafts for ages, but with the benefit of hindsight, I've edited it down to only the parts that are still relevant. I did tweet live at the event, so follow me on Twitter (@ddudgeon) if you're into that sort of thing.

BusinessWire hosted a panel event on PR-driven social media, with panelists from Think Communications, AMD, MH Group, SEGA and Ogilvy 360. Here are some highlights.

Why should brands use social media?

• "Social media helps humanize the brand...Social media gives SEGA a more human face. We're not constantly pushing products at you." - Kellie Parker, SEGA

How should brands incorporate social media into the rest of their communications?

• "Social media can’t live in a vacuum. It needs to be integrated into the rest of your advertising and messaging. Every component should be tied in to the same ROI and strategy to be effective. You can’t just sprinkle it in." - Rachel Polish, Ogilvy 360
• Clients may show resistance to adopting social media. No surprise there, but I was surprised to hear Courtney Barnes, VP at MH Group, dishing on her client United Airlines.* She talked about United's social media steering committee which includes reps from sales, customer support and marketing and complained about needing "17 signoffs". She also mentioned the infamous "United Breaks Guitars" videos and said "Usually it takes a crisis to get big companies to engage".

How do brands manage social media internally?

• SEGA has a “community team”. - Parker
• "People can be trained in advance and still communicate in a way that can be engaging. The richest social media programs have different people/perspectives telling their story." - Polish
• "Empower people with tools – carefully and in context of their brand and corporate culture." - Barnes

What social media guidelines should brands use?

• AMD gives out a social media “license” to employees so they know who can blog about what.They incorporate a traffic light system on blog topics. Red topics = don’t blog, amber = check with social media council, investor relations or legal. The license system made people feel more responsible and employees get a bit of training. - Ruth Cotter, AMD
• "The policy should be mapped towards the corporate culture." - Barnes
• Social media guidelines are publicly available from: IBM, Coast Guard, Intel, Cisco. - Polish
• "SEGA doesn't have a social media policy. Our policy is 'don't do it'. Only the social media team should be using social channels." - Parker

Some quick tips:

• Plan for the worst in advance.Go through scenarios.Plan for recalls. - Polish
• On secrecy: Think before you post, think again, and then go ask someone. - Parker
• On damage control: Maximum exposure, minimum delay to move the conversation along. - Polish
• On using Twitter for customer service: Customer service complaints go top of Twitter search results. Take conversations offline. - Barnes

Parker also shared SEGA's success story on Twitter. Every Friday, they have a giveaway on Twitter which started "just to get rid of old swag." Now the giveaway is part of their plan; they award six prizes per week. As a result, they get more followers on Fridays than any other day of the week - about 1,000 new followers every Friday.

*Full disclosure: United is a former client.

Post my weight to Twitter? Fat chance!

Is this the ultimate overshare? You can now do more than chew the fat on Twitter, thanks to a new Wi-Fi scale that reports your weight to the world.

I predicted back in 2007 that marketers would use this sort of data on Twitter to sell related services (although admittedly, I thought it would happen a lot sooner).

All any health, nutrition, fitness or weight loss company would need to do would be to set up an RSS feed for "i weigh in public", "iwip" and/or "http://withings.com", then start engaging with those customers. I'd expect a healthy dose of Twitter spam to appear, too.

Related posts:
Twitter: Being a Couch Potato
How to market your product/service using cutting-edge social media
4 ways to get Twitter followers

Social media "rock star" becomes actual rock star

Seth Silverton, a self-proclaimed social media guru who blogs about how to become a social media guru has topped the Billboard Download Charts with his number one single "Top 10 Tips for Social Media Rockstars".

Silverton said his hit single started as as a blog post that was "link bait" designed to improve his search engine ranking. His link bait attracted the attention of blogger/personal branding expert/disc jockey DJ BlogzALot who quickly saw the potential of Silverton's post.

BlogzALot and Silverton then crowdsourced the melody and commissioned musicians to record the tune with the promise of "publicity and blog traffic".

"People really seemed to connect with the song," said Silverton. "Especially the part where we break into a rap about OPB: Other People's Blogs."

"Who know after blogging about this song incessantly for six months, sending thousands of tweets, directly engaging with our Twitter followers by sending '@ messages' with links to download the song, setting up our own Facebook Fan Page and sending scores of micro-targeted social media press releases that we'd have a hit single."

Marketers: it's time to check in with Foursquare

Okay, I get it.

I've been trying to avoid joining Foursquare, the location-based social networking service which asks users to "check in" at various locations in order to connect with friends, gain points, get recommendations on nearby places and access special offers.

My hesitation in signing up was twofold: I don't think it's a good idea to publicize on the world wide web that my home is empty and, well, let's just say that anyone who has ever had an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend turn up somewhere "coincidentally" can probably think of a reason not to post their whereabouts in real time. However, Foursquare just would not go away, so I succumbed. It turns out their privacy settings enable users to choose how public their whereabouts will be.

The points element of Foursquare (e.g. +1 point for checking in, +5 point the first time you check in at a new venue, +2 points for checking in at two locations in the same day, etc.) adds a gaming component which is mildly addictive, even if you don't have any friends on Foursquare. (In contrast, it's not much fun tweeting alone, which leads many people to abandon Twitter.)

Yesterday, I "checked in" when I was having lunch and up popped an offer for $1 off a frozen yogurt at Froots. All I had to do was show the cashier the coupon on my iPhone to receive the discount, which I could get on my first visit and every fifth visit. Although I didn't buy the frozen yogurt, I seriously considered it, but this may be due in part to my mild coupon addiction.

If you have a bricks-and-mortar business, it's worth being an early mover on Foursquare. I would suggest piggybacking this with a PR effort about your company's use of new media. This was one of the main benefits for companies who were the first to establish a presence on Second Life, garnering them mentions in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review and Business Week. Double bang for the buck. No one cared who joined Second Life after that first wave. For the record, I recommended getting into Second Life early or not at all.

I think Foursquare has staying power, although there are already similar services vying for share of market, e.g. Gowalla and Yelp, which has just added check-ins to its iPhone app.

If you're a Foursquare, Gowalla or Yelp user, please leave a comment and let me know what you think of the service.

Related posts:

Marketing your local business with little or no budget

How to Market Your Product/Service Using Cutting Edge Social Media

DIY online marketing and PR

Marketing your local business with little or no budget

Here are some quick tips on marketing a local business with little or no budget:

Let your customers speak for you.

Ask your customers to post honest reviews on high-traffic sites like Yelp.com. Be sure to respond to any unfavorable reviews.

Post customer testimonials on your web site.

Ask your customers for referrals.

Ask complimentary businesses to link to your web site; for instance, if you are a wedding photographer, ask a wedding florist to link to you.

Use Google.

Google offers a number of services that can help – post your business on Google Local Business, create a Google Profile for your company’s key executives and link to your web site, consider spending some money on Google AdWords.

Use social networking sites.

Set up a Facebook fan page, start connecting with prospects on Twitter and join groups on LinkedIn. You can also set up your company profile on LinkedIn (rather than only using your personal profile).

Send out an online press release.

There are a number of free online press release distribution services. See this previous post for an analysis.

If you have any other tips, please leave a comment below.

Related post:

DIY online marketing and PR

How to Market Your Product/Service Using Cutting Edge Social Media

"You're on Facebook whether you want to be or not."
- Dan Rose, Facebook VP

Last night I attended a social media forum hosted by Kellogg. It was moderated by Tom Bedecarre and featured: Dan Rose, Vice President at Facebook; Seth Goldstein, CEO at Social Media; Jeremiah Owyang, Partner at Altimeter Group; Marisa Gallagher Vice President User Experience at Razorfish; and Clara Shih, Author of The Facebook Era.

I "live tweeted" the event and earned some geek cred (not quite as cool as "street cred") when Tom Bedecarre gave me a free copy of Shih's book for being the most prolific tweeter.

Here are some of the highlights of what the panel had to say to the roomful of MBAs: 

On the state of the industry:

Goldstien: Advertising is changing. Ads need to be real messages from real people; otherwise people ignore them.

Shih: Facebook is still dominating. There are more users on Facebook Mobile alone than on Twitter.

Owyang: Facebook's biggest competitor is Google. 

He mentioned that Google has set up a stealth social network, referencing Google Profile (here's mine) and highlighting the fact that users interact through e-mail, IM, Google SideWiki and Google Wave. Shih also mentioned Google Latitude. Later in the evening Owyang claimed that e-mail itself is a social network, an idea which had Goldstein shaking his head in disagreement, but a debate did not ensue.

Owyang: Social media impacts all of your digital marketing assets. Social media is a horizontal in your strategy, not a vertical.

Owyang: Social search will be very disruptive to the SEO/SEM industry.

On brands getting involved in social media: 

Rose: You're on Facebook whether you want to be or not.

Owyang: The earliest brands that got punk'd on social media are now the most successful.

Gallagher: You shouldn't use Facebook and Twitter for the same thing. The content should be different.

Gallagher: Customers are looking to engage with brands. And they want discounts. 

Who's doing it right?:

Shih: BestBuy and 1-800 Flowers are doing a good job of letting you buy on Facebook.

Owyang: Volkswagen uses your Facebook profile information to recommend a car for you.

Rose: Sprinkles gives away a free cupcake to the first 25 people who mention a secret word revealed on their Facebook fan page.

On new tools:

Rose: Brands with Facebook pages can now send messages targeted by geography and language, so you don't spam all of your fans.

Owyang: Flowtown will find all of the social networks a person is on, based on their e-mail address.

Goldstein: There are 100 thousand people on FourSquare. Checking in on FourSquare is even easer than tweeting.

Gallagher: Yelp's augmented reality iPhone app uses the phone's camera and GPS to show reviews of the businesses right in front of them.

On data and privacy:
Owyang: I believe Facebook has more information on Gen Y than the U.S. government.

Shih: Use privacy settings in Facebook to segment friends because "our Facebook profiles represent our personal brand."

There was a lot of discussion on privacy, what information Facebook and other sites have access to, and how individuals and brands should manage data-related risks. There were many people in the room who don't trust Facebook to keep their personal photos and information in a silo if they also set up a business presence on Facebook.

Although the panelists noted that using Facebook's privacy settings is easy, the attendees did not agree. Some users even admitted to setting up fake individual Facebook profiles to use in order to set up fan pages for their business. Rose's response was "why wouldn't you want to be associated with your business on Facebook?"

Actually, there are many reasons someone might want to keep their personal and professional lives in iron silos. For instance, those in certain professions need to avoid any crossover: psychologists, prosecuting attorneys, etc. Those types of professionals might want a Facebook page where they post resources, etc., but they don't want their patients or clients to have any chance of window into their personal lives.

Overall, the panel did a great job of discussing what's going on in the industry today and Bedecarre did a great job as moderator, getting the attendees involved in the discussion. Below is a (blurry) picture of me and Jeremiah Owyang at the event.

Affiliate Links:
The Facebook Era - Amazon US
The Facebook Era - Amazon UK

4 ways to get Twitter followers

There are four main ways to gain Twitter followers: build, befriend, beg or buy.

1. Build. When you tweet quality content, people will find you, and follow you. This takes time and consistent effort, however, it means that you will have followers who are interested in your content. 

2. Befriend. Find people with similar interests, and "follow" them first. If they see that you are tweeting about a relevant topic, they are likely to follow you back. Engage with other people. Respond to their tweets with an @message.

3. Beg. Or ask, really. Ask your e-mail list, put a your Twitter information on your social networking profiles and a Twitter icon on your web site and the bottom of other online communications. If you use Gmail, Yahoo or AOL for e-mail, you can search your address book for others who are already on Twitter.

4. Buy. Yes, you can buy Twitter followers, but DON'T. If you buy into one of the "gain followers fast" schemes, sure you will boost your follower numbers, but the only value you get will be bragging rights. You'll end up with a large list of people that have no interest in your content, don't click on your links, don't engage with you and just generally don't engage with you/your brand.  

Please add your thoughts or experiences about gaining followers in the comments below.

Are women's groups going bust?

Are women's networking groups becoming obsolete? I noticed that a few women’s networks, both online and offline, recently closed shop and I wondered if it was a trend.

Will online networks replace offline groups?
In London, the Women Writers Network was a group of women – many of whom were successful, published authors making a living from writing – who got together once per month to listen to a guest speaker and meet other writers. Although they tried to make a move into the online space, their ill-fated attempt may have actually contributed to their downfall. The usability on their web site was so bad, it rendered the site useless for the majority of members who could not actually access the forum. They also seemed unable to make the move from a costly printed bi-monthly newsletter, to a more frequent (and more useful) e-mail newsletter. While they were stuck in the past, the writers were getting their needs met elsewhere. In London alone, there are several web sites and groups that cater to writers, and send e-mails with tips, opportunities, etc. – for free. So it became less appealing for new members to pay an annual fee to see an occasional speaker.

But more importantly, the WWN stopped actively recruiting new members. For instance, they did not use free resources such as the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain’s weekly e-newsletter, to let people know about their group and events.

With the changing environment around them, the WWN needed to reassess their USP and energize the organization with new members.

Women’s groups – that men can join, too!
Remember that store called “Just Jeans”? I think they had a tagline at one point which was something to the effect of “we sell more than just jeans”. Really? Then don’t call yourselves Just Jeans!

I felt the same way when Chicago Women in Technology became about not just technology, but about, well, everything, and not a women’s network but, well, for everyone. “ChicWIT” started as a listserv (remember those?) and quickly expanded to 80 cities around the world. At first members would ask questions related to technology, but soon the e-mails were filled with people wanting to find an apartment, get a babysitter or ask for restaurant recommendations. The group then moved online and the site had columns from women and men bloggers. Although they had a member base of over 40,000, founder Liz Ryan was unable to convert this to cash and closed the site down. If she had stuck to her core proposition of women in technology or at least one of the two, she should have been able to sell rights to her web site for a tidy profit. Now it has gone the way of 404 Not Found.

Women’s group The Executives’ Council recently folded after 19 years. Leanne Hoagland-Smith, a past president of the group, said that over the years the group changed from executives to entrepreneurs. “The entrepreneurs wanted more quality content while some of the other members wanted more socializing.” She said it was difficult to make two different groups happy.

Fresh blood
It seems the most important thing for any group to stay vital, online or offline, is to engage with new members. Stevie Wilson, of LA-Story.com, has participated in several women's forums launches. She says "the sites that have folded are because of lack of advertising and fresh blood. You can't have the same people day after day. Sites need to evolve with open minds about what readers want to see."

That sentiment was echoed by Paige Gold, who was on the board of L.A. List, an offline women's group dedicated to increasing campaign contributions to pro-choice women running for local, nonpartisan offices within L.A. County. "After a while," she said, "it became apparent that the only people writing checks were board members."

The small matter of the bill
For any group to survive, they need a business model that works. In the online world, there are many ways to connect online at no cost these days (Facebook, LinkedIn, NING, etc.). Therefore, the only requirement is that some members dedicate some time to doing the admin for the group. But you can’t put up a forum or group page and hope people will join. It’s promote or perish.

In the offline world, there are often still costs involved – renting space, refreshments, speaker fees, etc. That means managing cash flow and ensuring there is a way for the group to have incoming revenue.

Penny Haynes, of the Commercial Creation Center said her favorite online women's group folded because the owner wasn't making any money from it. “[She] went another direction and started another group which she thought would be more relevant (and would make more money). Many of us paid for lifetime memberships in the first group, and therefore she wasn't getting any continual income from us.”

Lessons

• Actively reach out to get others involved, and interact with the people who do take an interest.
• If you’re starting a forum or online group, you can't just put it up and expect people to come.
• Use technology to keep costs down, and make sure it is usable and accessible.
• Know your USP and stick to it. Be aware of changing factors around you, and don’t be afraid to change with the times.

So are women’s groups going bust?
I know there are still many thriving women’s groups. Are men’s groups having the same issues? Have your say – leave a comment or e-mail me.

Can social networking make you rich?

Can social networking make you rich? Maybe, according to an article in USA Today. This article quotes stats from Anderson Analytics that show LinkedIn users have a higher-than-average income:

• Users with incomes of $200,000 and $350,000 are seven times more likely than those with lower incomes to have more than 150 LinkedIn connections.
• Executives make up 28% of users, with an average annual income of $104,000.
• Casual or new users had incomes of $88,000 or less.

So start social networking -- it's worth a try!

Before you get the axe: six quick things to do on LinkedIn

With the U.S. officially in recession, and more job cuts announced every week, now is a great time to get ahead of the curve and use social media tools to ensure you are well placed for future networking.

Here are six quick things you can do on LinkedIn:

1. LinkedIn now has a “status” message – similar to Facebook. Your contacts who subscribe to the weekly updates from LinkedIn will see what you’re up to. Get your name out there - but stick to business updates. No one cares that you just fed your cat.
2. Add new contacts to LinkedIn. LinkedIn can search your personal e-mail address book to find your contacts who are already on LinkedIn.
3. It’s important to get LinkedIn now with people in your organization – if they leave and you don’t have their personal e-mail address it will become much more difficult to find them and connect.
4. Join any groups from your current or former employers. Many companies now have a “alumni” groups – often set up by individuals rather than the company – so you can continue to network with former colleagues. Do this now as it'll be easier for the group administrator to verify that you work for the relevant company.
5. Add previous jobs to your profile - it will be easier for former colleagues, and recruiters, to find you.
6. If you have an industry-related blog, connect your blog's feed to your LinkedIn profile.

Rumours of Facebook apps' death have been greatly exaggerated

Back in April, New Media Age* reported that branded apps on Facebook were struggling to attract users. While I do think that any brand getting ready to jump on the bandwagon must offer something truly unique, engaging and relevant to make any headway, branded apps still hold possibilities on Facebook.

Though the initial investment to create and promote an app, according to NMA, is anywhere between £2k and  £30k, brands should take a long-term view. Perhaps this is why Facebook is now reporting on monthly active users, rather than daily active users. Do you really care if your users are interacting with your app every single day?

Take a look at how the apps NMA reported on are doing now (below). MTV, which looked like a loser at 115 daily active users, looks to have gained a following. Even if you assume it was 115 different people each day over the course of the month (say 3,450 daily users), they have experienced a 50% jump in numbers in six+ months.

Other apps, such as Woolworths' Catapult Game and Handbag.com have failed to gain ground.

The lesson is that, while Facebook apps may be a risk, don't give up on them (or fire your agency prematurely!). Some may take time to gain a following. 

*NMA's site requires registration.

Online Marketing & Media: Creating a Blended Search Strategy

I recently attended the Online Marketing & Media Conference at the Business Design Center in London. One of the seminars was hosted by Neil McCarthy, the Chief Marketing and Sales Officer for Lattitude. According to McCarthy, 60% of search traffic comes from organic search and 40% comes from paid search (thereby contributing to Google’s millions). However, the breakdown varies depending on your industry and what you’re selling.

75% of traffic from general searches comes from natural search results (according to Google)

For companies trying to sell products, this is reduced to 60%

For the financial service sector the traffic from natural search is only 50%

To maximize your natural search results, I do recommend that most clients get “professional help”. There is some science to it. Focus on maximizing your natural search results using techniques on your own site and external web sites.

Your site should have unique content. Merely replicating or consolidating information that can be found elsewhere will not help your search ranking. Google will ignore it, or worse, think you are a spammer.

Don’t use Flash on your site (for the content portions anyway) – Google can’t read it.

Outside of your own site, work on getting other sites to link to you – but they must be relevant to your business.

Create “link bait”. Give people a reason to link to you by providing something useful (for example, a mortgage calculator may encourage real estate agents to link to you).

In terms of paid search, some useful tips are:

Create ad copy relevant to the keyword on which you are bidding. Sounds obvious, but you could very quickly amass hundreds of keywords to bid on. Group relevant keywords together and create a series of highly targeted, relevant ads.

Ideally, each should click through to a relevant landing page which is not necessarily going to be your home page or a product page.

You have 1.8 seconds to convince people to click on your PPC ad. The copy must be convincing. Test frequently – PPC is one of the most testable mediums out there.

The copy should also pre-qualify your lead. It’s better if no one clicks on your ad than having the wrong people click because the latter costs you money.

As of May 2008, you can bid on competitor names in the UK (this has been the case for a while in the U.S.). Use this strategy with caution however and ensure it doesn’t tarnish your brand image.

You can also bid on words that will help your exposure. For instance, Gillette bid on spokesman Roger Federer during Wimbledon. So, anyone who searched for “Roger Federer” would have seen a PPC ad that read “Roger Federer and Gillette”. It really doesn’t matter whether people clicked through – thousands would have seen the ad and now associate Federer with Gillette.

Another interesting fact was that social media now accounts for more traffic than e-mail and creates one third of the traffic of search.

I’ll cover a session by Nielsen Online at the Online Marketing & Media conference in my next post.

Social Media: what Clinton should be doing

Recently the Hillary Clinton campaign asked for ideas on how they might do things differently. Here are my top-of-mind thoughts:

Clinton needs to up her game in blogging and social media. Obama is getting a lot of support from the "young" people online, but Hillary could tap into certain social networks and make an impact – social networks that are topic specific rather than just a generic MySpace / Facebook presence.

Clinton's campaign should appoint someone on staff to take the lead on social networking. They should:

• Identify blogs with a mid-level of readership (forgetting about the likes of Huffington post) and engage with them.
• Offer these bloggers content and/or access not available to others.
• Consider hosting an online chat with Hillary that is available only to key bloggers, or create a video / commercial that they can post on their blogs prior to being aired on TV – this could in turn become a "news" story and garner the campaign some free press.
• Search for relevant blogs based on popularity on www.technorati.com – it is free to do, but labor intensive – a perfect opportunity to use some volunteer resources.

Other groups they could focus on are topic-specific social networks. For instance, they could approach women's groups on sites like NING or gather.com.

There is a Hillary Clinton blog on the campaign site. The campaign should promote the blog at the bottom every e-mail they send. They should encourage people to sign up via RSS, digg the posts, etc.

However, I'd advise that this blog from a cursory view just looks like a diary of events. The blogosphere is more about a person showing their own voice and letting their personality come through. If Clinton is too busy, then have a staffer write an official – yet uncensored – blog, giving people a real behind-the-scenes view. This will also encourage other blogs to link to yours

These were my top of mind suggestions. I'd be interested to hear what other ideas people have. I also think the Democratic Party has a long way to go in terms of branding, an area where the Republicans have them beat hands down. This is something the party should think about in advance of the general election.

Micro Social Networking

While MySpace currently dominates social networking in the U.S. and Facebook dominates in the UK, many wonder how long they’ll cling to their user bases. The online audience can be fickle, as Friendster can attest. I think they’ll be around for awhile because many users have already “invested” in the sites by creating customized profiles in MySpace and adding copious applications on their Facebook pages. It’s hard to imagine another major player overtaking these sites any time soon (in the online space, let’s call that six months).

A trend I’m seeing is smaller social networks around particular interest groups or areas, e.g. CafeMom and Green Thing (a site I’ve just helped to launch). While these sites won’t be the next Facebook, they will attract users and engage them with relevant content. Brands often aim to increase their “share of wallet” – what they’ll be facing online is a challenge to increase their “share of week” and the micro social networks may be the real threat to the current behemoths.