PSST (2.0 opinions & trends) : contagious ideas blog edited by jérémy DUMONT + Andreea HIRICA POPA

#brandcontent. Bill Hicks on Marketing & Advertising. "You are Satan’s spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. " so true !!!

http://www.fluffylinks.com/bill-hicks-on-marketing

It’s old, yet still gold. Bill Hicks at his insightful best talking about Marketing & Advertising, from his 1990′s standup routine Revelations. We like to watch it every now and then, just to remind ourselves to not place dollar signs on everything. Well, almost everything.

After all, there’s a big market for the anti-marketing dollar.

Rather than killing ourselves we need to take responsibility for our sneaky marketing & advertising actions. And if we abuse our skills to do evil, Bill Hicks has always an answer ready for you.

Full Bill Hicks transcript on marketing & Advertising from here. Official Bill Hicks site here.

By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing… kill yourself.

No, no, no it’s just a little thought. I’m just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they’ll take root – I don’t know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself.

Seriously though, if you are, do.

Aaah, no really, there’s no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan’s little helpers. Okay – kill yourself – seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you’re going, “there’s going to be a joke coming,” there’s no fucking joke coming. You are Satan’s spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It’s the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself.

Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, “he’s doing a joke…” there’s no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend – I don’t care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi… Whatever, you know what I mean.

I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, “Oh, you know what Bill’s doing, he’s going for that anti-marketing dollar. That’s a good market, he’s very smart.”

Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags!

“Ooh, you know what Bill’s doing now, he’s going for the righteous indignation dollar. That’s a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We’ve done research – huge market. He’s doing a good thing.”

Godammit, I’m not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!

“Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill’s very bright to do that.”

God, I’m just caught in a fucking web.

“Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market – look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar…”

How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don’t you?

“What didya do today honey?”

“Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight.” [snores] “Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know?” [snores] “Yeah, you know the mums will love it.” [snores]

Sleep like fucking children, don’t ya, this is your world isn’t it?

How to make cyberspace safe for human habitation ? Title : Black Code Inside the Battle for Cyberspace. Author : Ronald J. Deibert

• Title Black Code
• Inside the Battle for Cyberspace
• Author Ronald J. Deibert
• Genre nonFiction
• Publisher Signal/McClelland & Stewart
• Pages 320
• Price $32.99

I spent February on a book tour for my YA novel Homeland, which concerns a group of American teenagers enmeshed in the surveillance/security apparatus. The kids are chased by private military contractors and anonymous hackers who infiltrate the teens’ computers, turning them into surveillance tools whose cameras, mikes, keyboards and hard drives are silently spying on them. On the first stop of the tour, in Seattle, I spoke to the audience about the real-world inspiration for all this: the companies, governments, crooks and schools that compromise our electronic infrastructure and our privacy in unimaginably invasive ways.

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Every part of our lives is touched by the Internet, and we interface with that network through our devices. I gave examples of network connections, laptops, phones and even implanted defibrillators being co-opted. When our devices betray us, we are compromised in every conceivable way.

I could have cited the example of a case from last year, when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission settled with seven computer rental companies and a software maker named DesignerWare. These companies had installed on their rentals DesignerWare software that covertly captured video of their customers having sex, video of their children, audio of their conversations, banking passwords, financial details, privileged discussions with lawyers and confidential health information. The FTC sternly told the companies that in future, they must refrain from this activity, unless they give notice of it in their terms and conditions.

When I was done addressing the crowd, a woman put up her hand and said, “You’ve scared the heck out of me. How on Earth can I possibly make all the electronics in my life secure?”

I said, basically, you can’t. I can’t. Only we as a society can. If I’d just given you a talk on the risks of waterborne parasites, you wouldn’t be asking how you could personally run an effective water filtration and sewage system. You’d be asking how we can get our governments and regulators to treat potable water with the gravitas becoming to something that is life or death for all of us.

Ronald Deibert’s new book, Black Code, is a gripping and absolutely terrifying blow-by-blow account of the way that companies, governments, cops and crooks have entered into an accidental conspiracy to poison our collective digital water supply in ways small and large, treating the Internet as a way to make a quick and dirty buck or as a snoopy spy’s best friend. The book is so thoroughly disheartening for its first 14 chapters that I found myself growing impatient with it, worrying that it was a mere counsel of despair.

But the final chapter of Black Code is an incandescent call to arms demanding that states and their agents cease their depraved indifference to the unintended consequences of their online war games and join with civil society groups that work to make the networked society into a freer, better place than the world it has overwritten.

Deibert is the founder and director of The Citizen Lab, a unique institution at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. It is one part X-Files hacker clubhouse, one part computer science lab and one part international relations observatory. The Citizen Lab’s researchers have scored a string of international coups: Uncovering GhostNet, the group of Chinese hackers taking over sensitive diplomatic computers around the world and eavesdropping on the private lives of governments; cracking Koobface, a group of Russian petty crooks who extorted millions from random people on the Internet, a few hundred dollars at a time; exposing another Chinese attack directed at the Tibetan government in exile and the Dalai Lama. Each of these exploits is beautifully recounted in Black Code and used to frame a larger, vivid narrative of a network that is global, vital and terribly fragile.

Yes, fragile. The value of the Internet to us as a species is incalculable, but there are plenty of parties for whom the Internet’s value increases when it is selectively broken.

Black Code shows how governments – from “free” Western/liberal states such as Canada to states such as Myanmar, China and Iran – have hit upon the Internet as a system for ubiquitous surveillance and social control, and documents how the ability to dictate unaccountable censorship is too much temptation to be borne. As Google’s annual “Transparency Report” of government censorship requests reveals, apparatchiks all over the world issue take-down demands to online services to remove embarrassing revelations about their offspring and cronies, as well as covering up graver sins, making use of censorship systems established in the name of fighting child porn, jihadism and copyright infringement.

These same states have demanded means of “lawful interception,” mandating that switches, servers and services be built with deliberate vulnerabilities so that law enforcement can tap into citizens’ communications and funnel them into massive intelligence databases. The telecom infrastructure is made even more fragile by the cozy relationship between phone companies and the agencies responsible for regulating them. Deibert makes this point vividly when he claims that Somalia has some of the world’s most advanced, cheapest and most reliable wireless infrastructure, thanks to the absence of a regulator that can be lobbied for anti-competitive favours – though thanks also to the usefulness of functional networks to warlords.

The temptation to play games with the wires and the airwaves is seemingly irresistible. Only one of Uzbekistan’s four major ISPs is free from heavy censorship – the one owned by President Islam Karimov, who benefits every time his own regime’s censorship rules make the three competing networks less attractive to the citizenry. Network penetration is growing fastest in the world’s poorest and most fragile states – countries whose populations desperately need the edge that better communications delivers – meaning that this is no privileged First World problem.

Everybody wants networks, and everyone wants to turn them to their advantage, whether that’s Canadian telecom giant Telus blocking its own union’s website (along with hundreds of other sites hosted in the same system that fell as collateral damage), the Taliban’s strong-arm control of cellular towers, or the Mexican narco-cartels that built their own elaborate wireless networks designed by kidnapped Motorola engineers. The tools of network control are the same, whether you’re a government, a military hacker or an organized crime syndicate.

This is Black Code’s virtuoso moment: when, after chapter after chapter of horror stories, Deibert shows that when states stop protecting the Internet and sacrifice its freedom and integrity in the name of convenience, they join forces with criminals and thugs.

Once, it was the norm for security researchers who discovered critical vulnerabilities to report them to vendors through a process of “responsible disclosure” that threatened to reveal the flaw at a date far enough in the future that the vendor could issue a patch before the news got out, but not so far away that the vendor could simply ignore the problem. Now, the major work on discovering vulnerabilities is being done by private security firms that sell their research to governments to be used in “lawful interception” software that hijacks criminals’ and dissidents’ computers and phones and turns them into remote snooping devices. As a result, these vulnerabilities remain unpatched, so crooks can use them to attack us too.

Without continuous disclosure and repair of security vulnerabilities, our digital world grows progressively less secure – even as we continually increase the intimacy of our relationship with it.

The conclusion of Black Code is as stirring and inspiring as the main body is chilling. Deibert calls on cops and spies and governments to actually do what they say they want to do: make cyberspace safe for human habitation. Stop compromising the network’s integrity and recognize that the only way to make the network secure is to stop eroding its security – even if that makes it harder to unaccountably, warrantlessly and secretly wiretap whole populations. Deibert calls on activists and civil society groups to take cops at their word when they say they want to secure our electronic nervous system, and to work with them on this project – but without letting them off the hook.

We live in a world made of computers: Our cars and houses are ultimately computers into which we insert our bodies; our bodies are increasingly full of computers such as cochlear implants. Everything we do today involves the Internet, everything we do tomorrow will require it. A responsible state has an obligation to approach Internet regulation with the gravitas due to the nervous system of the 21st century – but instead, it gets used as a toy for panopticon fetishists who think that all our problems will be solved when all the details of our lives are harvested and processed in the government’s data mills. Black Code is a manifesto for a 21st-century form of network stewardship, a sense of shared responsibility toward our vital electronic water supply. It’s a timely rallying cry, and sorely needed.

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger. He is the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of the bestselling teen novel Little Brother. His latest young adult novel is Homeland, and his most recent novel for adults is Rapture of the Nerds.

Five good and four bad examples of brands using Twitter. Twitter is a brilliant tool for communicating with consumers and when used effectively can be a great way of building customer loyalty.

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/62639-five-good-and-four-bad-examples-of-brands-using-twitter

by David Moth 

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In recent weeks I’ve come across a number of brands that have excellent Twitter strategies and several that I thought were less impressive.

This could be because they were dull, unimaginative or simply weren’t living up to their potential.

So to shine some light on the differences between those brands getting it right and those that perhaps aren’t, here are five good and four bad examples of brands using Twitter...

Five good

ASOS

ASOS operates several different Twitter feeds for fashion updates and customer services, which is a common strategy as it means that marketing messages don’t get mixed up with customer care queries.

The women’s fashion account has more than 470,000 followers and responds to hundreds of @mentions each day, mainly from customers who are excited about a recent purchase.

The social team adopt a casual, friendly tone which reflects the brand image and is a great way of building a relationship with customers and improving brand loyalty.

It also adds to the excitement around the customer’s purchase and is a way of replicating the personal touch of in-store customer care.

ASOS’s feeds also tweet product suggestions and marketing messages, but these are largely lost among the huge number of @mentions.

Looking at the customer care feed, the ‘Here to Help’ account is excellent at promptly responding to customers and deals with queries with via direct message and a follow up call or email from customer services.

This means that all conversations are moved away from public forums and reduces the likelihood of an embarrassing complaint.

Nike

Nike has a wide range of Twitter feeds for each of its sub-brands and each one does a terrific job of interacting with customers and followers.

For each of the feeds – which include golf, basketball, FuelBand and football - the focus is very much on responding to @mentions rather than pushing out marketing messages.

For example, the Nike.com feed (797,000 followers) responds to more than 100 tweets per day regarding order queries, stock information and product details.

As with ASOS, the sports brand also operates a Nike Support feed to resolve product questions and technical needs. This dedicated customer service feed also answers hundreds of questions per day.

The sport feeds also respond to a large number of @mentions each day and are on hand to dish out training advice, product information or encouragement to other users.

Personally I’m a big fan of Nike’s Twitter strategy and would like to see more major brands adopt a similar approach as it goes a long way in turning customers into brand advocates.

Nike has also achieved some notable successes by using Twitter as a central tool in its marketing campaigns. During the London Olympics it managed to outshine official sponsor Adidas with a massive billboard and social campaign around the capital.

Nike eschewed the usual celebrity endorsements in a campaign that celebrated everyday athletes. It bought up hundreds of billboards around the city featuring the hashtag ‘#findgreatness’.

Adidas, which spent tens of millions of pounds to be an official sponsor, ran a campaign featuring Team GB athletes and the hashtag ‘#takethestage’.

According to Socialbakers’ CheerMeter there were more than 16,000 tweets associating Nike with the word Olympic between 27 July and 2 August compared to 9,295 for Adidas.

Tesco

Tesco has a huge number of Twitter feeds for each of its business units, not all of which are very successful, but it’s worth taking a look at its customer care feed.

It has almost 80,000 followers (an increase of 30,000 since January) and is incredibly active having tweeted a whopping 262,000 times.

The customer care team respond to and resolve hundreds of queries every hour and are available for most of the day – 8am to 11pm from Monday to Saturday and 10am to 8pm on Sundays.

The tone is generally quite light-hearted and the social team also joins in conversations with other users and brands.

Overall it’s a great case study for how to get social customer service correct and should stand as a benchmark for others to try and emulate.

Microsoft and Xbox Support

While the main Microsoft and Xbox feeds are quite uninspiring and largely stick to pushing our marketing messages, the customer support feeds are definitely worth checking out.

A report from Simply Measured shows that 30 of the Interbrand Top 100 Brands currently operate a dedicated customer service Twitter account, a number that has increased from 23 since December 2012, so it appears to be a strategy that works.

The Xbox Support feed has tweeted an astonishing 1.3m times and according to its bio it holds the world record for being the most responsive brand on Twitter.

The handlers adopt a very informal tone, often referring to customers as ‘mate’, and are extremely proactive at making sure that problems get resolved.

Further to this, Simply Measured found that another official customer support feed, Microsoft Support, responded to @mentions in an average of just 42 minutes.

I feel it’s a fantastic way of using social to both deliver customer service and drive brand loyalty, though it obviously requires a huge investment in staff and training.

Arena Flowers

Not all brands adopt a serious approach on Twitter, as is demonstrated by the likes of Arena Flowers. Avoiding any actual reference to what the company does, the Arena Flowers Twitter feed seemingly has no interest in promoting offers or marketing messages.

The entire feed is full of funny one-liners and random thoughts, which has attracted more than 16,000 followers.

As a UK flower delivery company Arena has the freedom to run an entertaining Twitter feed, whereas I can’t see the same tactic working for a major brand like Nike or ASOS.

Even so, it does a fantastic job of raising awareness of the brand so that when people are in the market for flowers they remember the Arena Flowers name.

The company also proved to be quite flexible with its social policy recently when it suffered a catastrophe with Valentine’s Day orders and was forced to contend with a large amount of customer complaints.

It temporarily suspended the funny tweets and instead used its Twitter feed to direct personalised responses to disappointed customers, as well as broadcasting updates. 

In a recent interview CEO Will Wynne told us that Twitter proved to be a really useful tool for rectifying the situation.

“When people know why something has happened and how it is being resolved, they are happier to give you time to fix it, rather than demanding an immediate response.

Five bad

Stead and Simpson

Assuming this is a genuine account, it’s dreadfully dull to the extent of being pointless. Shoe retailer Stead and Simpson tweets once every few days and simply pushes out boring marketing messages.

As far as I can tell it has never actually responded to another user and as a result it has just 108 followers.

Diet Coke

Coca-Cola’s main Twitter feed is excellent and does a decent job of responding to @mentions, so it’s surprising that the Diet Coke feed is so dull.

It’s mainly used for tweeting marketing messages, asking questions, and spouting inspirational quotes, and never really responds to more than about five other users per day.

Diet Coke has a clearly defined audience and could easily use Twitter to communicate with its customers and increase brand loyalty, however it prefers instead to use it primarily as a broadcast tool.

As a comparison, the Nike Running feed gives training and product advice to hundreds of people per day, so there’s no reason why Diet Coke couldn’t offer fashion and lifestyle tips in keeping with its brand positioning.

Ikea UK

In general Ikea has an excellent social strategy, although its UK teams leave a lot to be desired. In fact the UK appears to be one of the few markets in which the retailer doesn’t have an active Twitter feed, though there have been several short-lived attempts.

For example, the Ikea stores in Warrington and Nottingham established feeds a few years ago but quickly abandoned the experiment and the accounts now lie dormant.

Similarly, I noted a few weeks ago that the UK press office tweeted five times in 2011 but then lay silent for several years, though in fairness that account has now been deleted.

However the retailer should really kill these feeds, as it doesn’t reflect well on the brand to have a number of failed social accounts lying dormant.

Kellogg’s

Despite being a well-known global brand none of Kellogg’s Twitter feeds has managed to attract more than a few thousands followers.

Even the Pop-Tarts feed is only followed by 6,100 people while the corresponding Facebook page has almost 5m fans, which is likely a reflection of the fact that the feeds are generally quite uninteresting.

Pop-Tarts tweets a few marketing messages and responses each day, while Krave mainly retweets people that have mentioned the brand in between quirky product-related tweets.

The Kellogg’s US feed is probably the most dull as its tweet include mentions of spring cleaning and tax returns though it does also respond to occasional customer service queries, as does the UK feed.

David Moth is a Senior Reporter at Econsultancy. You can follow him on Twitter or Google+.

Digital strategy & planning: the Oxfam Ireland perspective

Creating an awesome digital strategy isn't rocket science. But with so many elements the mix, it can be tricky to know where to start. This presentation (made at a Digital Marketing seminar in Dublin) demystifies the areas of strategy and planning through a practical approach based on simplicity.

In the slides below, we'll:

• Examine the elements of a successful digital strategy and offer solid tips for planning amazing digital projects.

• Visualise the Digital Communications Framework - containing all elements necessary for effective digital engagement: content, website, mobile, social media, email & digital marketing.

• Illustrate how we can easily plug our strategy into this framework.

• Explain why simplicity is crucial and why strategy mustn't overly complicate things.

• Outline the 5 step process for a successful digital strategy.

--

Keith McManus is Digital Communications Manager at Oxfam Ireland.

Digital Influence : what's at stake for advertisers? from Pierre-Philippe Cormeraie

Digital Influence : what's at stake for advertisers? from Pierre-Philippe Cormeraie

Are you getting personal with your customers? by Robert Durkin

 

http://econsultancy.com/fr/blog/62584-are-you-getting-personal-with-your-customers#

 

 

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Content is king. This phrase might have been around a long time, but it’s still applicable to marketing. Of course, nowadays it’s only truly valid if the content is personalised.

Otherwise, the message just won’t get through to your audience.

As technology progresses and new digital channels are adopted, targeting becomes more sophisticated, which makes personalisation even more critical.

In fact, according to Econsultancy's recent Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing, 52% of digital marketers agree that personalising content is crucial for online strategy.

Q: To what extent do you agree with the following statements? 

Personally, I think this is 48% less than it should be, especially as studies show that personalised marketing campaigns are consistently more successful than static and BAU advertising content.

Why bother to personalise content?

In the past, you might have seen online adverts that were so irrelevant that you wouldn’t have given them a second glance, labelling them all as irritating and intrusive.

However, if content is displayed in an unusual and interactive way, or is directly relevant, consumers are far more likely to engage with it, especially if they can personalise it themselves.

Marketers are beginning to realise the importance of unique content, so more companies are creating innovative ways of allowing customers to personalise and interact with site content.

Sky has created a widget that allows their customers to choose a personalised ‘Sky bundle’ with automatically updating prices.

Once the customer has made their choices, they are sent straight to the shopping basket on Sky’s ecommerce site, which is pre-populated with their personalised package.

The M&S virtual makeover counter is another great example of content personalisation. This platform lets customers upload their photo and virtually test make-up products, making it easier for them to find the right shade of foundation, lipstick, eye shadow etc. for their skin tone.

Spontaneous personalisation

Content delivery, particularly timing, is also crucial and the effect of real-time personalisation was seen recently when the power went out during the American Super Bowl.

Making the most of the situation, several brands released adverts that were inspired by the blackout. Oreo tweeted a simple picture of their famous biscuit with the caption ‘you can still dunk in the dark’ but it received almost 16,000 retweets.

Perhaps this advert was planned, perhaps it wasn’t. Either way, the timing was key to its success and companies should be aware that a clever response to a sudden event can lead to increased product awareness and customer interaction.

What do others in the industry think?

Martin Connolly, Co-Founder and Commercial Director at adGENIE:

If a customer leaves a site without purchasing, enticing them back to the site will only be successful if they are shown relevant content. Adverts need to be personalised so that they engage with the customer and incite a response.

Harry Hurst, Business Development at Qubit:

Delivering the right content at the right time is key to driving up overall visitor conversion rates. Having all the details about the product clearly outlined, like prices and sizes available, can make this targeted message a much more compelling call to action.

Rakhee Jodgia, Director of Publisher Business Development at Rakuten LinkShare:

Affiliate marketers often think they need to work non-stop to receive commission, but the key is to ensure that the products they are promoting relate to their site content (whether a food blog or travel review site), and to their audience.

Chris Sheen, Head of Marketing, SaleCycle:

When it comes to email, personalisation is everything and it's vital to ensure the emails your customer receives feel as personal as one from a friend or colleague. This ensures a great customer experience – and more importantly, extra clicks and additional sales!

Sanjit Atwal, Co-founder and CEO, Squawka:

Consumer engagement is at its highest when tied to particular events or major (and timely) pieces of content through second screen devices. We have seen engagement levels up to ten times the industry average, proving that real-time personalised advertising works.

The end of generic content

It’s important that each online channel provides a unique user experience, but brands must be represented consistently across all channels, with content that is directly relevant to the audience within that channel.

Using product data to personalise content for online consumers ensures that they sit up and take notice of it, helping to generate product and brand engagement.

By making the most of captured data and ‘big data’, it’s never been easier to target product content towards your existing customers using marketing technologies.

Robert Durkin is Co-Founder & CEO of Fusepump and a guest blogger on Econsultancy.

Heineken is using insights gleaned from its global tie-ups with Google and Facebook to develop real-time marketing initiatives around mobile devices

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/heineken-to-build-real-time-marketing-drive-around-mobile/4006435.article?utm_term=jeremy+dumont&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Heineken is looking to serve targeted mobile content to fans around sponsored events such as the UEFA Champions League.

The business is building the initiative around creating second-screen experiences.

It is to serve targeted content to fans in real-time based on whether they are watching a sponsored event such as the Champions League or the Ultra Music Festival in addition to using Facebook apps for global brands such as Desperados and Strongbow to reach people on the move. The brewer says it wants to move away from just developing apps that support global campaigns to creating platforms fans can share use anytime.

Heineken’s global lead of digital strategy and media innovation Jeremy Brook told Marketing Week the business sees mobile as a “gamechanger” and a “real opportunity” for its brands to be a part of the conversations fans are having in real-time in “a way we haven’t been able to do so before”.

He adds: “The key insight we’ve taken from our partnerships with Google and Facebook over the last year is how much more connected devices our target consumer has access to now. This learning has made us look at how we build a capability around real-time marketing to make sure that adult drinkers want to have conversations with our brands.

“We’re also taking an inventive approach with how we develop apps. We’re working on projects at the moment that are building on consumer behaviour rather than interrupting it. We’re looking at how we leverage existing apps for future work rather than creating a deep and immersive experience that takes them away from their world and what they want to enjoy.”

The flurry of activity is the latest phase of the brewer’s social media strategy, which is using learnings from its global partnerships with Google and Facebook to grow its online fanbase. Heineken is also considering other social networks and earlier this year teamed up with Twitter to build a Vine-based video app to support its music sponsorship activity in the US. Heineken plans to use the video-sharing platform in upcoming marketing initiatives.

Digital marketing is set to be a key battleground for brewers this year as they step up efforts to reach younger consumers. Earlier this month, Carlsberg centralised its social media offering to create create traditional advertising campaigns inspired by content from its advocates, while AB Inbev is exploring ways to cascade social media best practices across its markets.

Twitter has signed agreement with Starcom MediaVest Group. Starcom's clients, which include Procter & Gamble, Microsoft and Coca-Cola, will potentially receive preferred advertising slots on Twitter as well as access to research and data and new products.

Twitter signs major advertising deal with Publicis Groupe

By Gordon MacMillan, 

The second screen: Twitter signs TV-linked ad deal

According to a report in the FT,  the TV-linked deal is another reflection of Twitter's importance as the second screen and its increasingly symbiotic relationship with television.

The deal, which is described as a partnership, means that Starcom's clients, which include Procter & Gamble, Microsoft and Coca-Cola, will potentially receive preferred advertising slots on Twitter as well as access to research and data and new products.

One of those new products will be the "In-tweet mobile survey", which was announced in October, in a partnership with Nielsen. The brand surveys on Twitter appear to users just like a Promoted Tweet within a user’s timeline on both mobile devices and the desktop. They will invite users to fill out a survey directly within the Tweet itself.

 

However, the deal is not exclusive and leaves the way open for Twitter to sign similar agreements with rivals such as WPP Group's GroupM, Dentsu-owned Aegis and Omnicom.

The deal with the Publicis Groupe-owned media planning and buying agency follows recent comments by UKTV chief executive Darren Childs who said that Twitter drives UKTV's ratings.

Twitter has been working closely with broadcasters in the US and UK to forge a deeper relationship highlighted by its acquisition earlier this year of social TV analytics firm Bluefin Labs.

Speaking about the deal, which has been announced before US broadcasters announce their new slate of programming for the current year in their upfront presentations Adam Bain, Twitter’s president of global revenue, said that the TV industry has been focused in the wrong area.

"We think that the industry had been focused in the wrong area, which was making a decision between Twitter and TV. That’s not what we believe. Twitter is a bridge," he said.

Laura Desmond, global chief executive of Starcom MediaVest Group, told the Financial Times that Twitter, in a very short period of time, had gone from an experiment to something that is essential.

"This signals to the marketplace how we want to conduct business and measure the implications. This is the future. It’s convergence," she said.

In March it was reported that Twitter is on course to hit global advertising revenues of $1bn in 2014 and will earn $582.8m in 2013.

More than 50% of that is expected to be made up of mobile advertising, according to a forecast from eMarketer.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk

Gartner Says the Vast Majority of Social Collaboration Initiatives Fail Due to Lack of Purpose

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2402115

"Provide and Pray" Approach Has Just a 10 Percent Success Rate

Gartner Analysts to Share Best Practices for Planning Social Collaboration at the Gartner Enterprise Architecture Summit 2013 in London, U.K. and National Harbor, Maryland, U.S.

Although social technologies are employed by 70 percent of organizations, Gartner, Inc. said most social collaboration initiatives fail because they follow a worst practice approach of "provide and pray", leading to a 10 percent success rate. 

"Without a well-crafted and compelling purpose, most social media initiatives will fail to deliver business value," said Anthony Bradley, group vice president at Gartner. "This provide and pray approach provides access to a social collaboration technology and prays something comes good of it, like a community forming and participants' interactions naturally delivering business value. As a result, this approach sees a 10 percent success rate, and the underlying reason is usually that the organization did not provide a compelling cause around which a community could form and be motivated to provide their time and knowledge. In other words, purpose was lacking." 

Gartner's research into the social collaboration efforts of more than 1,000 organizations has identified several prominent patterns. The most apparent was that social collaboration initiatives that have a clear and compelling purpose from the outset tend to succeed. While this may seem obvious, the vast majority of organizations treat collaboration as a platform decision, rather than a solution to a specific business problem or a route to a desired outcome. 

“Organizations approaching social collaboration in the "provide and pray" manner do not fully recognize the value of purpose and do not understand how to take an "architected" approach to it,” said Mr. Bradley. “Social collaboration efforts are a challenge for which enterprise architects are well suited, as these practitioners are often cross-disciplinary. They are able to work with social initiative leaders to define community purposes and condense these purposes into a strategy or road map which they can use to guide project teams during implementation.” 

Enterprise architects should begin by helping organizations identify and define, at a high level, the target community for social collaboration. Having defined the audience, they should then identify the nature of the collaboration and the desired business outcome. "A well-defined purpose identifies who the participants are, what specific issue they are collaborating around, what value they will gain for themselves, and what value will be provided to the organization," said Mr. Bradley. 

However, all purposes are not equal in terms of their ability to catalyze a community. For example, some purposes are stronger and best positioned early on, while others may thrive after achieving a critical mass of participation in a social community. Enterprise architects can help an organization evaluate the relative strengths of purposes and sequence their integration into a social collaboration initiative. 

To assist them, Gartner has identified five characteristics of a good purpose: 

• Participant magnetism: The purpose should naturally motivate people to participate. This is the "what's in it for me" characteristic. Users should easily grasp its importance and the value of participating. The purpose must have meaning to the participants, and build within them a compelling need to participate. If you have to create interest among users, especially through costly incentives, you've chosen the wrong purpose.
• Community draw: The purpose must resonate with enough people to catalyze a community and deliver robust user-generated content. The best communities are heavily unbalanced in their two-way approaches, meaning that the community contributes far more content than the supporting enterprise. Find out how powerful the purpose is for drawing in significant numbers of people and contributions.
• Organizational value: The purpose should have a clear business outcome. This is the "what's in it for the organization" characteristic. Choose purposes where organizational value can be clearly measured and shared with the community as feedback and motivation to continue participating.
• Low community risk: Choose low risk over high reward. The purpose, especially early in an organization’s social application maturity, should be low risk. This overall characteristic derives from four types of risk:
     Culture risk is the risk that the corporate culture is not conducive to mass collaboration.
     Adoption risk is the risk that people will not be inclined to collaborate on this subject or in this community.
     Information risk is the risk that the community's shared information will be sensitive in nature.
     Result risk is the risk that, even if a community forms, its interactions will not bear fruit.
• Promoting evolution: Select purposes that you and the community can build on. Determine the dependencies between purposes. Some purposes have a more natural tendency to lead to others and to facilitate emergence, while that others are more subordinate. Those that have no dependencies but can lead to other purposes score higher. 

Gartner analysts will examine how enterprise architecture can help deliver successful business outcomes from the disruptive nexus of social, mobile, information and cloud forces at the Gartner Enterprise Architecture Summit 2013 in London, U.K., on May 14-15 and in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., on May 22-23. 

For further information about the Enterprise Architecture Summit 2013 in London, please visit http://www.gartner.com/eu/ea. Information on the Summit in National Harbor can be found at www.gartner.com/us/ea. You can also follow the event on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Gartner_inc using #GartnerEA. 

About Gartner Enterprise Architecture Summit 2013

A unique confluence of disruptive trends from the nexus of cloud, social, big data and mobile forces provide an unprecedented opportunity for enterprise architecture (EA) practitioners to deliver business value from EA differently than ever before. This year's Summit examines how a revolutionary new approach to EA can leverage the Nexus of Forces, driving strategic value and change, engaging key decision-makers and ultimately increasing the effectiveness of EA programs.

Why You Need a Chief Digital Officer ? Companies that have yet to hire a CDO, but who regard a great digital customer experience as core to the business, should consider making room for one.

http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/03/27/why-you-need-a-chief-digital-officer/

by Tom Erickson

The chief digital officer, a relatively recent addition to the C-Suite, is already making his influence felt on today’s technological landscape and, by extension, everyday living. Companies that have yet to hire a CDO, but who regard a great digital customer experience as core to the business, should consider making room for one.

From morning coffee (Starbucks Corp. has a chief digital officer) to the evening panel discussion at the local university (Harvard University has one as well), there’s now a CDO considering the digital implications of experiences that you might not expect. Going through Times Square, I’m reminded that NYC now has its own chief digital officer, that there’s a CDO at the nearby CVS Caremark Corp., and a CDO at the New York Stock Exchange.

It’s fairly easy to pinpoint the trickle-down difference at this everyday level, compared to the days prior the appearance of the chief digital officer. Whether you’re Whole Foods Market Inc. or Warner Music, you now likely have somebody — even if he or she doesn’t have a CDO title —  with full responsibility for how technology frames the customer experience. It’s at this personal interaction level where the CDO’s impact is most keenly felt.

Let’s take the CVS example. Until recently, your CVS ExtraCare card was either a piece of plastic in your wallet or a mini card looped onto your keychain. Now, ExtraCare is an app on your smartphone. It’s not just easier to find there. It collects all those Extra Bucks you may have previously lost when they were on the register receipts, and it helps you connect to the pharmacy for prescriptions.  It can even scan your prescription refill or identify a pill after you’ve lost the bottle. Leveraging technology to help a company integrate more effectively with the consumer will be the responsibility of CDOs like CVS’s Brian Tilzer.

In addition to the difference at the street level, there is also the difference the CDO brings to the top of the corporate structure. When I’m sitting in a conference room, across the table from a chief digital officer, or the empty chair that indicates the lack of one, I definitely register the difference this position makes. Despite the occasional skepticism about the need for yet another executive position, there are many instances where this role matches up well with the digital decisions that many companies are making, or should be making.

Where is the CDO most valuable? In my experience, three questions apply.

Are you facing digital disruption? Chief digital officers are most valuable in companies that are facing digital disruption. Companies that sell products and services directly to consumers, for example. As the list of important consumer touch-points gets longer on the conference room whiteboard — Web, mobile, in-store, digital, social, e-commerce — I feel better if there’s a chief digital officer in the room.

Most CDOs are keeping their customers’ experience at the front of mind. They’re tasked with understanding how to best engage their audience going forward and what fundamental changes are required. They’re worried about scale, reach, and revenue; and they struggle, as many company executives do, with putting customer data to use in relevant, real-time ways. Most CDOs know the strategic advantage will fall to those who make the best use of Big Data in the coming years.

That said, I’ve dealt with some amazingly talented CIOs who are functioning as chief digital officers. A recent Gartner survey indicated that 20% of the surveyed CIOs said that they were essentially serving as their company’s CDO, and I believe it. While CDOs have become necessary in companies where the background of the existing C-level doesn’t include digital vision, there are many companies in which this digital vision resides in some or most of the C-level offices. Adding a CDO position also means there’s a solid line to the responsibility for digital success.

Does your company have a vision for digital engagement? To be effective, there has to be an overarching vision that unites all of the individual digital engagements with the consumer, like those in the CVS example. That overarching and integrated digital strategy will be provided by the CDO. This vision brings all of the digital platforms together and creates a unified customer experience across them. This experience is becoming increasingly personalized, based on the lessons learned from previous customers, as well as the current digital visitor. The hope is that the intelligence required to create such an experience will be drawn from disciplines like Big Data and predictive analytics. Creating this optimal experience will be one of the great challenges for a CDO, as an entire data science and UX industry has sprung up around it. Which leads to my third question.

Is digital the primary gateway to your success? The reason to build that great digital experience and overcome digital disruption is to be successful. That success may be measured in bottom-line revenue, eyeballs, influence, or an impact of some other kind. But if digital is clearly your fastest growing revenue stream, or the key gateway to your success, at least consider a CDO. If you’ve been noticing that more of your important budgets are becoming IT budgets, this probably applies to your company.

Let’s face it, there are yawning gaps between the traditional job roles that still apply in many organizations. A good CIO has the operational experience to create new digital channels, but does he or she know how to create and evaluate brand awareness and customer experience? The chief marketing officer may know about outbound branding and messaging, but do they know how to create interactive branding and messaging?

A chief digital officer can bridge those divisions, manage channel conflicts, and implement processes that are effective across the entire organization.

As Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins has been telling us, digital is disrupting virtually every aspect of contemporary life. Often these disruptions crop up in unexpected places.

If your company answers yes to the three questions, the road forward will likely be clearer and smoother with a chief digital officer in the picture.

Tom Erickson has been a successful software executive, investor and board director for several enterprises over the past 30 years. Currently Tom is chief executive of open source software services company Acquia Inc.

Rachel Sterne, New York City's chief digital office task is to reinvent how the city engages with its residents, primarily through social media like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.

Michael Appleton for The New York Times

NEW ROLE Rachel Sterne, New York City's chief digital officer, testified at a City Council hearing in June. Ms. Sterne's task is to reinvent how the city engages with its residents, primarily through social media like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.

By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ

Published: July 30, 2011

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ONE of the most popular online inventions of New York City’s government is The Daily Pothole, a blog that tracks, in gravelly detail, the milling and paving of street cavities from Midwood to Midtown. It is eye candy for the asphalt-obsessed: panoramic photos accompanied by comic captions (“Bump!” “Sneak Attack!”) and a goggle-eyed mascot named Warmy, an asphalt plug, to boot.

To Rachel Sterne, who was named in January to be New York’s first chief digital officer, The Daily Pothole epitomizes a new era for city government. Ms. Sterne, 27, who unveiled the blog in February, has been handed the task of reinventing how the city engages with its residents, primarily through social media like Facebook, Tumblr, Foursquare and Twitter.

More than six months into her job, Ms. Sterne, a former digital consultant who started an international news site at 22, has found that many people inside and outside city government are still puzzled by her position.

“This role is not just about a Twitter account,” she said in a recent interview, though she does have one, @rachelsterne, with roughly 21,000 followers. “It’s about evolving government. It’s about doing a better and better job of serving New Yorkers.”

As one of only a few governmental officials in the country focused on the digital arena, Ms. Sterne is still working to define her mission. She has embarked on a detailed study of how New Yorkers connect with government online, aggressively courted private-sector entrepreneurs to help with public projects and sung the praises of digital interaction in the halls of government.

But the rapidly shifting dynamics of the digital sector make it hard to predict what Ms. Sterne will be able to accomplish. Not to mention that she has virtually no experience in government, and that she is among the youngest faces in the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “There are a lot of moving pieces,” she said.

Her appointment to a job that pays $115,000 a year created something of a stir on the Internet. Some bloggers praised the city for recognizing the importance of the digital frontier, while others questioned Ms. Sterne’s qualifications.

Ms. Sterne, who grew up in Brooklyn and Westchester County and studied history at New York University, gained prominence as an evangelist for citizen journalism. Her Web site, Ground Report, compiles firsthand news reports from around the world, enabling 10,000 contributors to report instantly on breaking news like the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, and the Beijing Olympics. (Ms. Sterne’s father now oversees the site.)

Ms. Sterne worked briefly at LimeWire, a music file-sharing company that came under fire for piracy and was shut down after several music companies sued. Before joining the city, she ran her own digital consulting firm for two years.

Her close bonds with executives at companies like Foursquare, Facebook and Tumblr have been a boon in her new job, Ms. Sterne said, helping her build bridges to the technology community. “A lot of people have said to me, ‘We felt like one of us was in that role,’ ” she said.

But her connections have also created awkward moments, as in May when the city promoted the technology of Livestream during her first news conference with Mr. Bloomberg. The company, which broadcasts events on the Web, is run by her fiancé, Max Haot.

Ms. Sterne spends much of her time talking to technology companies about ways to use their platforms to showcase the work of city agencies. The other day, she was on the phone with Sleepover, an online design studio, discussing the design of a centralized Tumblr page for the city.

“We want to represent the city in a professional light, but we also want to use a tone that is appropriate for the platform,” she said during the call.

Ms. Sterne’s aim is to persuade colleagues in government to embrace, not fear, digital outlets, a task that can be delicate in an age of Twitter scandals. When she proposed hosting a “hackathon,” a meeting of programmers, to solicit ideas for redesigning the city’s Web site, she recalled, she had to explain to colleagues that it would not pose a security threat.

It helps that the city government is led by a technophile who reads speeches on an iPad, regularly uses Google Maps and has developed an affinity for trying to stump the song-identifying mobile application Shazam.

For all his technological prowess, however, the mayor has largely avoided social media. While he has more than 123,000 followers on Twitter, his aides manage the account.

Ms. Sterne said she was unsure whether she could persuade Mr. Bloomberg to start personally posting to Twitter, though she will host a social media training day for other city officials in September. “You only use it if you’re using it in an authentic way,” she said. “You don’t want to force this stuff.”

Her central achievement since January is a 62-page report, Road Map for the Digital City, in which she outlined an ambitious plan to open up vast reserves of data, improve wireless Internet accessibility and expand the city’s mobile-application offerings.

The response was largely positive, but some questioned the city’s strategy.

Steven Romalewski, a specialist in data visualization and mapping at the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York, said the city was too focused on cultivating private-sector relationships rather than working to build its own technology and ensuring full access to data.

“Why hitch your wagon to these flash-in-the-pan companies?” Mr. Romalewski said. “Should the city in effect be outsourcing or should the city be doing a better job of developing in-house capacity?”

Ms. Sterne, however, said the city was diversifying its platforms, for instance, by providing access to the 311 help line through phone, text, Twitter and, soon, online chat. “We need to be logical in leveraging tools that the audience that we’re trying to reach is using,” she said.

Ms. Sterne seems comfortable in her new role, if occasionally taken aback by the realities of working in the public sphere. She said she had found only one other chief digital officer, in São Paulo, Brazil.

When she solicited questions on Twitter recently, she received an unexpected missive in response: “How do you justify paying a chief digital officer six figures for this stunt when an average high-schooler could do it for free?”

Ms. Sterne, in her guarded way, laughed off the inquiry. “It sort of comes with the territory,” she said.

At some level, she seems proud to be seen as the whiz kid who somehow infiltrated city government.

When John Gambling interviewed her on his radio show in May, he joked, “I want to know if I can get Rachel’s e-mail address so that when my computer locks up, I can call you and you can fix it for me.” Ms. Sterne did not miss a beat.

“Absolutely,” she said.

Luke Kintigh: How To Create. Branded Content for The Social Web. Intel iQ Managing Editor reveals how his brand successfully became a publisher of engaging content.

http://www.psfk.com/2013/04/social-web-branded-content.html

Luke Kintigh, Intel .

When I started my career in digital marketing in 2009, “content” and “marketing” were not seen as synonymous words or practices. Sure, they had reasons to get along and like each other, but their Facebook relationship status would have likely been “it’s complicated.”

Fast forward to today and the status of content and marketing has escalated to read “in a relationship” in our news feeds. It seems the popular couple is everywhere with massive conferences and cover stories devoted to its lure and attraction. Just ask any marketer how times they’ve heard “content is king” in the last 6 months whether content marketing is the latest buzzword de jour.

There is no doubt content marketing is shaking up the marketing world, forcing CMOs to re-think and shift their resources to create newsrooms, content labs and postions such as Chief Content Officer and Content Strategist.

Intel Steps Into the Publishing World: iQ is Born

When I joined the corporate marketing group at Intel in the fall of 2011, content marketing was well under way. At the heart of this effort was a new media property called iQ by Intel that was chartered to grow Intel’s footprint as a brand publisher. I was appointed the Managing Editor, working alongside Bryan Rhoads, iQ Editor-in-Chief, an early visionary and content marketing leader at Intel. After months of development and strategy sessions, iQ BETA was launched in May of 2012. The primary objectives for the new site included:

• Create A Cross Device Storytelling Experience: iQ set out to highlight and narrate our modern world and the personal impacts of the technological ecosystem on our modern planet. Overt marketing “fluff” with little regard for audience demand was to be left at the door for content that one would actually want to share and consume—all while being designed and delivered to create the same level of experience and engagement whether you’re viewing iQ on a laptop, tablet or smart phone.

• Take the Pulse of the Web: Curation was crucial element to iQ to capture what’s trending in real-time on the web. We developed a unique algorithm to curate trending technology stories from sources that younger audiences read and shared by our known influencers. Read more about how iQ curation works from Content Curation Marketing.

• Build a Media Property to Integrate Paid, Owned and Earned Media: Create a content engine that effectively integrates with our earned, paid and owned media activities. Ranging from a tweet from @Intel to getting picked up in Flipboard and using paid media dollars to boost awareness of a selected post, iQ content has the flexibility and potential to fully integrate into all aspects of the media and marketing strategy.

Drinking From the Content Marketing Fire Hose

As we launched the site, the iQ team started to work with a team of journalists and editorial partners, conducted editorial meetings and worked closely with the Intel social media team to amplify and extend iQ content. Before we knew it, we were beginning to operate a newsroom, managing a robust content machine and starting to see our goals for iQ come to fruition. By end of 2013, iQ was emerging as an essential asset to Intel’s marketing and social media strategy. Although satisfied with the early success of iQ, we knew there were many improvements to be made. In January 2013, iQ version 1 (the current site) was released. Several new changes and strategies were implemented from our learnings since the BETA launch. So what have I learned about content marketing in the last 11 months? I’ve distilled the 12 core lessons for brand publishers organized by the tenets of the iQ content marketing approach; production, process and promotion.

Production: Building Your Newsroom & Editorial Strategy

• Establish and Evangelize An Editorial Strategy and Identity: How do you ensure consistency and cohesion for your content with a wide range of contributors and editorial partners? We found the answer largely lied in a clear editorial identity and strategy for iQ that we distributed to iQ contributors and stakeholders. The editorial ID covers the desired tone, style, and voice as well target audience data and how to optimize the content for amplification using paid, owned and earned media. Worksheets and examples are also used to create an interactive and hands on approach for our writers as they create and develop content. The ID has turned into the Bible for iQ and something we can always go back to for foundations of our editorial strategy.
• Don’t Mistake Marketing Objectives for Audience Interests: I would receive the 5 key objectives for our latest campaign to include in my next blog post and I would ask myself, “will our target audience really respond to this at face value ” This is where I learned to take off my maketing hat and put on my journalist hat. As a journalist would do, begin with audience demand and what keeps the reader up night and gets them out of bed. How can I help identify a gap in their needs and provide true value? Once I figured this out, then I could back into the maketing objectives. Articulate the “why” then proceed with the “what.” Doing this backwards will often times result in a message that’s forced and smells of overt marketing.
• Pay for Performance, Not Just Content: I’m a big advocate of hiring journalists. We’ve found there are great resources out there to discover talented and affordable freelancers, but many of these services don’t incentivize or compensate writers to generate traffic for your content. Look to see if you can negotiate or find methods to pay your writers, at least partially for performance and not 500 words of text. Using a “pay for performance” methodology is already being used by Forbes and other publishers. This model ensures a better R.O.I on your freelancer budget and will force you to work with writers who have built in audiences, which they’ll be rewarded to distribute your content to on a regular basis.
• Learn to be Creatively Rapid: In today’s digital economy, timing is everything. As AdAge wrote, “Consumers’ attention spans are shortening by the second; most news is only relevant for a day or two, if not less… We’ve seen time and time again that culturally relevant content achieves engagement.” To capitialize on real-time marketing your team has to move quickly all while creating compelling content. Set up a workflow for how to quickly respond to opportunities, practice proactive scenario planning and most importantly don’t be afraid to take risks at moment’s notice. It can pay off as we recently experienced with the Intel Harlem Shake reaching 119,000 organic views.

Process: Keeping the Trains Running on Time & the Passengers Happy

• Consolidate Metrics and KPIs: As content marketing becomes more integral in the overall marketing mix, the more important the systems will be to track and measure the impact of content on sales and performance. It is difficult to use data when it is living all over the place creating inconsistencies and fragmented results. That is why integrating your metrics and data sources is a great first step to help better guide your marketing efforts using data. Think about how you can consolidate your data and continually research potential marketing automation software and tools that can tie sales indicators to your content KPIs.
• Don’t Underestimate the Power and Efficiency of Great Tools: Relying on email and spreadsheets to manage your content may seem adequate. However, you’ll soon find generic tools don’t scale well and cost more time and money in the long run. Effective content management tools can not only create a robust content management hub, but will also enable contributors and stakeholders to collaborate more effectively through customized workflow. We’ve found a solution that’s acts as our CMS, editorial calendar, file storage system and content submission workflow, all in one. Although it takes time to get tools up and running, the investment will pay off in many ways.
• Identify Storytellers and Great Writers in Your Organization: Intel is a company of 100,000 employees, so it is no surprise there are some talented storytellers. However, we’ve learned being a great writer is no easy task or skill. Look outside the usual suspects of PR and communications for talent. You may find some potential contributors who can bring a unique skill set to your content outside of the typical blog post in the form of visual content, creative design or story ideas. Plus, often times these people are closer to customer, so they understand your audiences more intimately. Some of best internal iQ stakeholders are not in corporate marketing.
• Taking Your Editorial Calendar a Step Further: Adding some key elements to your editorial calendar can greatly optimize your content strategy and day-to-day operations. Here are some items and meta data we’ve added to our calendar and content management system:
  • Target Audience: What persona and/or sub-set of an audience is your content targeted?
  • Buying Stage: Where in the sales funnel or buying process is the content intended to serve?
  • Cross Promotion: After the content is published, where else can it be extended (social media and digital channels)?
  • Weekly & Monthly Themes: What’s the big story (event or product campaign) driving your content each week and month?
  • Content Tagging & Mapping: How can you tag your content so it’s mapped to business objectives and content goals?
  • Call-to-Action: What are you ultimately asking the reader to do and how is it tied to business objectives?

Promotion: Clicking Publish is Only Half the Battle!

• Less Can Be More: At the beginning of iQ, we had the mindset that the more content we cranked out, the better. You could call this the “field of dreams” approach–”if you publish it, people will come.” This philosophy totally disregards the importance of distribution and promotion and we quickly found out is extremely flawed. Without a strategic approach to amplification, your content won’t go far. You need to spend just as much time with promotion as production, in fact probably more. This resulted in reducing production and increasing promotion. Today, we spend at least 50% of our time proactively working all promotion angles. Although we produce less content than we once did, our traffic and engagement has more than doubled. So in our case, yes, less is more!
• Think Natively When You Distribute Your Content Socially: With so many social channels available to the consumer, distributing content has turned into a very complex process. You many think the “cookie cutter” approach of using the same copy and imagery across all social media channels will ensure your story is told in a consistent way. However, this strategy neglects the inherent audience behavior for each social media community. What works on Twitter, doesn’t necessarily work on Facebook and vice versa. It comes down to knowing the native behavior of the audiences of your social communities. This means creating animated gifs on Tumblr, using hash tags on Twitter, and strong visuals on Facebook—all attributes unique to way users respond to content on the platform.
• Don’t Just Syndicate—Co-Create: While there are a plethora of effective paid media vehicles to syndicate content, co-creating content with publishers can be a more authentic and successful option. iQ has an ongoing editorial partnership with PSFK, where we co-create content, which is published to our respective sites and social channels. iQ and BuzzFeed have a similar partnership. In addition to being promoted on BuzzFeed and iQ, this recent co-created post was also used for several tweets and Tumblr posts using selected images from the article. By co-creating content with like-minded publishers, you can strategically leverage their talent, and more importantly access to their audience. Simply renting 4 square inches on a publisher’s homepage won’t necessarily accomplish the same result.
• Bring Influencers Into Your Content Early: Tapping topic influencers for quotes and insights will not only provide great sources for your content, it will also increase the chances of your content getting shared by them. Utilize tools and methods to identify the top influencers for the subject matter of your content. Consider an influencer’s social footprint when deciding who to source for your article. Could they give your content a boost if they shared it? What level of influence do they have with other topic experts? What have they covered and how can you leverage it in your content? These are questions that will help identify and build relationships with influencers. After a successful interview, follow up with the influencer with a link to the story and encourage them to share it. Also, call out your source in tweets and other social posts for recognition and affiliation with them.

Luke Kintigh is a global content strategist on the integrated media team at Intel. In addition to acting as the Managing Editor for iQ by Intel, he also helps execute the content strategy and manages the communities the global social media channels for Intel. Follow him on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.

SOCIAL LISTENING + CONSUMER PANEL =) The Football League is to offer sponsors insights into how fans are engaging with all 72 of its member clubs online with the launch of a social media tool designed to help reach its global audience.

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/football-league-promises-social-insight-for-sponsors/4006381.article?utm_term=jeremy+dumont&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The Football League is looking to give commercial partners deeper social insight.

The platform launches later this month (22 April) and tracks fan behaviour across the League’s entire web presence including Facebook, Twitter and mobile applications. The social listening tool records data on fan sentiment and engagement in real-time which in turn is shared with sponsors to help plan campaigns.

Sponsors can filter the data to build audiences and target ads across the governing body’s online portfolio, which includes the websites and social networks for all its member clubs. It aims to give backers deeper insight into the digital and social behaviour of the League’s global fanbase in an effort to increase revenues from international campaigns.

The organisation claims the deal will move sponsorship exposure beyond “the billboard, the television screen, the strip or the website” for the first time.

David Parish, head of the Football League’s digital operations, says the metrics the platform provides offer “a vital combination that will add value to our digital business”.

He adds: “As the world’s largest online footballing network, insight is of paramount importance to steering our user journeys in a way the fans need.

“Any knowledge of fan and user engagement has a natural knock-on effect when it comes to activating brand activity for our partners. We have proximity to a huge percentage of the population and by understanding them better we obviously add value to the overall offering.

The platform, developed by advertising services business RadiumOne, will be used alongside the League’s recently launched online research panel Changing Room.

The governing body, which distributes the money it collects from sponsors to member clubs, is working to exploit the global appeal of the League as more of its member clubs are bankrolled by overseas owners. Last year it expanded its commercial team with several new appointments and also agreed a multi-million deal with American financial firm Capital One to sponsor the League Cup in June.

The launch comes as the League is reportedly struggling to secure a new title-sponsor for next season with potential backers believed to be unwilling to budge on a revised value, thought to be around £10m-a-year. The League, however has ramped up its data offering in recent months to demonstrate value, particularly around the country’s less celebrated sides, who are turning to ECRM initiatives to build long-term relationships with young supporters.

The Football League is to launch its first online research panel for member clubs in the hope of providng sponsors with deeper insight when planning campaigns.

Football League chiefs to use fan insight to help develop new brand building initiatives.

The Changing Room initiative launches this month and lets supporters share their opinions through discussion groups, forums and surveys on a number of topics.

The panel will feature 15,000 opted-in supporters who were chosen via the Football League’s and specific clubs’ customer databases throughout December. A more detailed profile of each supporter is being developed this month to ensure each of the League’s 72 member clubs are represented within the online community.

Feedback from the panel will be used to offer the League’s partners insight into trends and opinions amongst supporters and help them develop more targeted campaigns. Additionally, the League will review the data and use it to inform its commercial strategy moving forward.

The Football League, which distributes the money it collects from sponsors to member clubs, hopes the venture will uncover “bold and innovative ways to engage fans.”

Richard Heaselgrave, chief commercial officer at The Football League, says: “Fans are at the very heart of football, which is why we are always looking into effective ways of hearing their collective voice.

“The introduction of The Changing Room offers supporters the chance to have their say on topics affecting them, their club and The Football League as a whole. This gives them the opportunity to help shape how we approach important issues within The Football League, and the feedback we receive will be invaluable.”

The panel marks the latest bid from the League to boost revenue for its clubs. Last year, it bolstered its commercial team with several new appointments to exploit growing overseas interest and also signed a deal with financial firm Capital One to replace Carling as the League Cup sponsor in June.

Data marketing is becoming increasingly important for football clubs particularly the country’s less celebrated sides, who are turning to ECRM initiatives to build long-term relationships with young supporters.

pr smith's marketing planning system - SOSTAC® - situation analysis, objectives, strategy, tactics, action, control

http://www.businessballs.com/pr_smiths_sostac_planning_method.htm

While many people seem to use the SOSTAC® acronym as a generic term, it derives from the SOSTAC® Planning System created by writer and speaker PR Smith in the 1990s, and is actually a protected registered trademark (registration number 2219677 to be precise).

The SOSTAC® model and associated methodology are now used by blue chip corporations around the world and also by many smaller businesses and organisations. In some ways SOSTAC® has been a victim of its own success - rather like hoover means vacuum and xerox means photocopy - such is the price of inventing a good concept and name to go with it...

As stated in the heading the SOSTAC® acronym stands for:

• Situation analysis
• Objectives
• Strategy
• Tactics
• Action
• Control

The success of the SOSTAC® concept owes much to its simplicity. And isn't it about time that business planning was made a bit simpler.

Traditionally the task of putting together a decent business or marketing plan has been enough to strike fear into many an aspiring junior manager or budding entrepreneur:

"You want a marketing plan? Including financials? By the end of next week? Of course, no problem... (Oooer.. how on earth am I supposed to do this?..)"

The young planner then cocoons himself or herself away for a week after asking friends and relatives for examples of good planning documents, none of which is any use whatsoever, and trying to guess what exactly the boss (or bank manager) actually needs. Of course most of the time the boss hasn't got the first clue about how to write a decent plan either - it's all a big game - moreover most of the bosses who do know what they want don't have the sense to coach the terrified underling as to what the plan should look like. So the inevitable reams and reams of pointless calculations and hypotheses ensue, much midnight oil is burned, and a needlessly complex business planning document is produced.

Happily not so with PR Smith's SOSTAC® tool. Common sense prevails, and we can safely get on with producing a proper useful working planning tool, instead of something that will attract a jolly good bollocking for the unwitting planner, and then be tucked away into a deep drawer never to see the light of day again.

Incidentally when accrediting the SOSTAC® model the official attribution is PR Smith (there are thousands of Paul Smiths..), and it is certainly appropriate to use the ® symbol, which I do here on this page rather more freely than normally because so many people have come to think that SOSTAC® just sort of grew on a wall or something, or was devised by someone else who thought they'd fancy taking the credit for it. So, credit where it's due...

Here's what PR Smith says himself about the SOSTAC® planning structure, taken from his book, Great Answers to Tough Marketing Questions (Kogan Page 2003) and reprinted here with Paul's blessing.

 

what is SOSTAC®?

What should be in the perfect marketing plan? There are many different approaches to building a marketing plan. There is no single common approach. But there are essential elements which every marketing plan must have.

The SOSTAC® planning system covers them all. It took me (PR Smith) five years to devise SOSTAC® but you can learn it in five minutes. Use it and you are well on your way to building a well structured and comprehensive plan. You can also use this approach to check other plans to see if they are comprehensive and cover the key items which every plan needs.

S stands for Situation Analysis - which means where are we now?

O stands for Objectives which means where do we want to go?

S stands for Strategy which summarises how we are going to get there.

T stands for Tactics which are the details of strategy.

A is for Action or implementation - putting the plan to work.

C is for Control which means measurement, monitoring, reviewing, updating and modifying.

 

add the 3m's

Now add in the 3M's - the three key resources, Men, Money and Minutes.

Men meaning men and women, expertise and abilities to do different jobs.

Money means budgets - have we the money?

Minutes mean time - what are the time scales, schedules or deadlines? Is there enough time?

Each of the six elements of SOSTAC® are considered in much greater detail elsewhere in PR Smith's book, Great Answers to Tough Marketing Questions.

If you can remember SOSTAC® + 3M's and build them into your marketing plan, you have the platform for writing a good marketing plan. In fact, you have an outline marketing plan.

Here is what some experts feel about SOSTAC®:

Professor Philip Kotler: "SOSTAC® is a system for going through the steps and building a marketing plan".

Sam Howe, Director of CATV Marketing Southwestern Bell: "SOSTAC® is a great approach for anyone going ahead and building a marketing plan".

David Solomon, Marketing Director, TVX: "It appears that we are following the principles of SOSTAC®."

John Leftwick, Marketing Director, Microsoft UK: "We use SOSTAC® within our own marketing planning".

Peter Liney, Concorde Marketing Manager: "I think SOSTAC® is very good in terms of identifying, if you like, major component parts of what you're doing in marketing."

Finally, one question that commonly arises: Where would you put Target Markets, Marketing Mix and Positioning in SOSTAC®?

The answer is that Target Markets pop up almost everywhere. Target Markets are so important that once you have identified them in the objectives, they pop up all over a marketing plan - in the situation analysis, objectives, strategy, tactics and so on.

A summary of the current marketing mix and positioning will appear in the Situation Analysis under a 'review' section.

The future mix and positioning and target markets are often summarised under Strategy and explained in detail under Tactics.

 

The above is an excerpt from PR Smith's book, Great Answers to Tough Marketing Questions 2nd ed. (2003) Kogan Page, London. Reproduced by kind permission of PR Smith. SOSTAC® is a registered trade mark of PR Smith. More information at www.prsmith.org.

 

pr smith biography

PR Smith is a best selling author and international speaker on marketing. He wrote the eLearning courses for the Chartered Institute of Marketing's (CIM) new Online Certificate in Marketing and the Professional Award in eMarketing, and his eLearning programmes are used by global organisations including IBM and the British Council. PR Smith's first book, Marketing Communications (4th edition written with Jonathan Taylor, Kogan Page, 2004) is a long-time best seller, recommended by the CIM alongside Kotler, Peppers et al. He co-wrote the ground-breaking Strategic Marketing Communications (Kogan Page 1999) and Great Answers to Tough Marketing Questions (Kogan Page, 2nd ed. 2003), now translated into four languages, and also co-wrote eMarketing eXcellence (Butterworth Heinemann 2002) with Dave Chaffey. PR Smith is the originator of SOSTAC® Planning System and trains professionals internationally including IBM (USA), BT (UK) and top communications agencies such as HHCL and BBH. He is a member of the CIM, The Marketing Institute of Ireland, the Institute of Public Relations and the International Visual Communications Association. He is also the Senior Examiner in eMarketing for the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a member of CIM's Review Panel for its leading edge articles. More information about the SOSTAC® Planning System is at PR Smith's SOSTAC® webpage.

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see also

• Brainstorming
• Balanced Scorecard
• Business planning templates and tips
• Financial terms and ratios
• Marketing principles and methods
• Project Management

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