Digigen & The TinMan

I never believed I would see the day when Google was described as archaic, old, not forward thinking enough. How times change in worldwidewebworld. However, there is a constant, ever increasing voice saying they are and they have missed the boat in “real time” search. Real time is interesting, it taps into the conciousness of the nation, the world even. It taps into what the public is talking about now, what they are really feeling, so it will be massively exciting in the run up to the World Cup and the General Elections in 2010.

Google on the other hand taps into our memory, our flow of actions that have previously happened, but which are not happening or potentially not happening right now. As such there is a certain sense of reliability with Google, which you cannot get with real-time search. We all know the negative stories about Twitter and Swine Flu, social escalation of a crisis which could have easily been quashed if you followed some of Google’s cracking Swine flu maps.

The debate rages on. I for one am going to continue to track trends and cool stuff on Twitter, whilst searching for what I really want on Google.

Although this is applied to brands, I figure the same could be applied personally. The internet is rightly orientated to openess and transparency. More and more brands know this, more and more are acting on this. Yet there are some stragglers who simply don’t step up to this paradigm shift in consumer behaviour and ownership. Nevertheless its important for brands to follow some simple steps….

1) Don’t try to do too much. Focus on the key areas which will help your brand, support its key attributes, and not alienate the audience you have worked all your career to grow. What I mean by this, if its not clear, is start by focusing on the areas you know your consumers will be in and great open avenues direct to your brand from here.

2) Create great content experiences. Content is a really powerful way of creating a stronger brand interaction with your consumers. I believe its alot more valuable than advertising. Deliver great content relevant to your brand, you may be suprised how much content you actually have that people want.

3) Constantly monitor social media. Don’t just dip in and out of social media. Can’t afford a decent monitoring tool? Well, there are plenty out there who are free or will give you a free test so you can see the value yourself. Want some recommendations? contact me.

4) Respond in the right and agreed way. Agree a tone of voice and point of view for your company. Zappos are brilliant at this. Whole Foods are decent at this. Having different people from different parts of the company talking in different ways about the same thing is just going to make your company look slightly dumb. Your point of view and tone of voice should be based on what you have heard from point 3 and what your company stands for.

5) Open yourself up to reviews. Let consumers review everything you do. From first point of contact to delivery. Get them to review your brand logo, your brand identity, your company report, your products, your staff. The more involved you get the consumer, the more you can learn, the more you can improve your reputation.

All in all, it isn’t that difficult to manage your reputation. However, it does take time and you need to make sure you are “always on”. I hope it works out for you.

The FTC has ruled that any bloggers reviewing products on behalf of companies must now declare that they have recieved payment or freebies. The penalties for not doing so will mean a fine of up to $11k.

I find this all a bit surreal to be honest. The whole point of blogging is the freedom to talk about what you want, when you want. I don’t know any people that we work with who would dishonestly take money for writing a positive review. Our stance is that all bloggers should be equipped with information and products. If they then choose not to review the product then that is unfortunately our loss. A positive review cannot unfortunately be relied on and shouldn’t be relied on by clients or agencies. This is one of the cons of doing blogger outreach.

The more positive parts of blogger outreach for me are:

1) The ability to really discuss the product with someone who is an expert in the product area. I have found this amazingly useful when engaging further about the product with clients, bloggers and other members. Most bloggers I know, Eric Friedman in particular, are more than helpful in advising on best approaches.

2) The buzz when a blogger does write a positive post because he/she is passionate in that area and loves the product. This to me is the ultimate in blogger outreach and something that should be cherished. They don’t need your product, they don’t need to review your product so be grateful they have taken the time to review.

Blogging should be viewed as an additional arm to a PR strategy, not a simple way of getting paid advertising out there. I get approached almost daily by small agencies or “blogging technology” companies who will take money for being able to help “generate some positive blogging pr”, but we refuse to go down this route.

Seemingly this Sunday is proving quite a good one for some digital thinking from brain MBB. Normally reserved for one post a day or one a week, this is the third today and perhaps they may be some more to come tonight.

The term Social Graph was initially coined by Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook about a year ago, but has since become the choice of term for all those “Social Media Gurus” out there. A Social Graph is effectively your level of connection and interaction, your connectedness within platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Your Social Graph is where the smart platforms will monetize your connectivity. I believe this is where Facebook will make a significant income and help justify their valuation.

But what does it mean to us, the consumer, Joe Public. Well, the Social Graph won’t just make money for Facebook. It will make money for you as well. So you aren’t laughing at those people with 2,000 connections now are you? Effectively, the Social Graph allows you to become an affiliate.

An especially powerful affiliate in my eyes as 78% of consumers say they have bought products within social networks on the recommendation of a friend, 45% have bought products based on any recommendation in a social network. There is clearly money to be made.

If you imagine that for every person you have a connection to, in my case 200 on Facebook, there is the potential that another 10 per person may see your message. If I post a recommendation on a product into my news feed it will go into 200 other news feeds, plus be seen by a potential audience of 2,000. Say for example, I am working on a CPA basis of £5 and I get a conversion of 5%, (Car Insurance perhaps?) that would give me a return of £500 simply for a short recommendation on Facebook. Suddenly the proposition seems pretty attractive.

There are companies who do this sort of thing already, BzzAgent is one that springs to mind. However, the ultimate is the more genuine of being able to act as an affiliate for a brand you really love.
Fancy figuring out your potential income from your social graph? http://apps.facebook.com/viralloop

I have been studying social media pages for awhile in my role. We have some real success which we have been running for clients, no more so than Skittle Skuffle on Facebook. One of the most successful brand pages they have run. I think therefore that I have hit on a pretty smart model which I believe demonstrates what brands should be doing. Essentially it shows the real cost of running social media pages, through ad, human and content spends. Of course this needs refining somewhat and we are already on the fifth version. However, here is an original version.