Brand Challenges & Opportunities With Social Media & Mobile

Headaches for brands—and the people who manage them—are increasingly common when it comes to search results. More are on the way thanks to social media and the proliferation of smart phones. You should be aware of the impact on your brand because both social media and the use of smart phones to express opinions are growing quickly. Before we jump in, check out a few stats:

According to comScore’s MobiLens data from August 2010:

• 234 million Americans age 13+ use mobile phones
• 34% use mobile web browsers (some math: roughly 79 million people)
• 22% access social media through their phone (more math: 51 million people)

The top mobile social media sites in the USA:

• Facebook
• MySpace
• YouTube
• Twitter

So let’s speculate about what’s going on so you know exactly how you or your competitors could manipulate ads on social media and mobile to take advantage of brand advertising.

Facebook. Facebook sells ads on a CPC basis. When you purchase ads, you pick who you want to target by selecting their “likes.” Using this option, you are able to list the Facebook groups that you want to target. These groups could be your competitors’ groups. You could even tailor your ad to call out the competitor by name (“Hey [competitor] fans!”) to draw attention to your ad.

There is tremendous opportunity to target in a very specific way. There is also an opportunity for brand posers to take advantage of your hard work in building your channel, so be aware of the ads that may be targeting your users when these users are visiting your Facebook group.

YouTube. I wrote about YouTube advertising channels in my article Search, Video & Your Brand: Hello YouTube! over a year ago. At that time, advertisers could purchase self-service CPC-based ads called “promoted videos.” Since then, YouTube has added several other ad units including “brand channels” that enable advertisers to build a channel area filled with videos only related to them. Channels appear to get top billing in the organic results on YouTube. However, we are still seeing many instances where promoted videos of non-brand related items or other brands appear on searches. Nor do we see big brands taking advantage of ad opportunities on more generic searches for products that represent them. For example, we ran a search on the term “snowboards” but not a single ski or snowboarding product manufacturer appeared in the sponsored listings or the organic results. There is opportunity here that seems to be wide open for the taking.

Twitter. You can advertise on Twitter or be a recipient of advertisements on Twitter without realizing it. There are companies that pay for tweets to promote their products and brands, usually on a CPA or CPC model. The messaging in these tweets is not well controlled. It’s actually quite easy to disparage a brand in tweets in order to promote another—making some easy cash in the process. If you run a quick search on the keyword “twitter ads” you will find several enterprising companies who are capitalizing on the concept of paying for tweets.

Google mobile. This is our new favorite for brand compliance activities. Folks that want to exploit your brand or your affiliate program have gone largely undetected on mobile. We recently released a compliance monitoring report for Google mobile, and found compelling evidence that brand exploitation has found a new home on mobile. We have just begun to study these results but early indications suggest a rise in affiliates detected on Google mobile as well as competition that many times doesn’t exist on regular search results.

Keeping track of the ads running across all of the various channels can be challenging. Here are a few easy things that you should do.

Mobile. Search for your top terms on your own mobile phone. Decide if you need to be there. Is your competition there? Are your affiliates brand bidding there? Be sure to target your search campaigns for mobile users.

Facebook. It’s tricky to see the ads that another user might see because targeting can be so specific to “likes.” The best thing you can do is to make sure your own ads are running so that even if a competitor does manage to show up when a user is looking for you or reading about you, your ad will be present also.

Twitter. There are many monitoring tools, some free or very low cost, that allow you to read tweets that mention your brand. You should subscribe to a tool and follow-up on tweets from folks with enough followers to have some influence.

YouTube. Begin by running searches on your brand name or generic words that generate traffic for you on other search media. Observe which videos appear, and then purchase ads to ensure that your ads appear as well.

We are keeping an eye on the social and mobile ad opportunities. As more channels appear, there are more ways for your brand to be advertised as well as exploited. More for you to manage, but also more channels for you to use to evangelize your message.

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Microsoft Replacing Windows Live Spaces with WordPress.com

Microsoft and Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, announced today that the Windows Live Spaces blogging service will be phased out in favor of WordPress.com. Users of the service will have the ability to transfer their blogs via a new migration utility beginning today.
In a post on Inside Windows Live, Dharmesh Mehta, Director, Windows Live Product Management, said:

“Over the last few weeks, we’ve spent a good bit of time talking about our approach to partnering with the web, and as part of that, how we’re deeply integrating with the leading consumer services that you find most valuable….
As we looked at customers’ blogging needs and what different companies were providing, we were particularly interested in what WordPress ().com is doing….
So rather than having Windows Live invest in a competing blogging service, we decided the best thing we could do for our customers was to give them a great blogging solution through WordPress.com.”

Automattic’s Paul Kim added on the Just Another WordPress Weblog:

“Over a six month period, beginning today, Windows Live Spaces users will have the option to move their blogs to WordPress.com. To make this possible, we’ve created a brand new importer for Windows Live Spaces to WordPress.com. New Windows Live users will also be offered a WordPress.com blog when they choose to create a new blog.”

WordPress.com currently hosts nearly 14 million blogs. If even half of the 30 million blogs on Windows Live Spaces make the transition, it’s a major client acquisition for the WordPress.com service.

6 Free Web Tools for Managing Time Differences

Conducting business with international clients can mean more than just a language barrier — there can be a time barrier as well.
With 24 standard time zones, it can be overwhelming to keep track of all your clients’ business hours, and scheduling tasks across time zones can be a challenge.
If your business depends on knowing what time it is everywhere, don’t worry, as there are plenty of free online tools to help you coordinate, and ensure you never unwittingly call a client at 4 a.m.

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1. World Time Zone

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World Time Zone is a handy, at-a-glance map that lays out every region. Divided and color coded, you can quickly see which areas fall into which time zones. It also displays local times for each of the world’s capital cities.
If you want to focus on a specific region, the site is broken up by continents, so you can view an easy-to-read chart with all the time differences.
Another handy feature is the highlighting of which areas are observing Daylight Saving Time. Also, take a look at the Sun Clock feature, which (as the name implies) allows you to see in what regions the sun is still shining.

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2. Time Zone Converter

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This website is pretty much as straightforward as it gets when it comes to calculating time differences. There are two clocks. The one on the left displays your local time. The one on the right will do the conversion for a number of major cities. If you simply need to know the time elsewhere in a hurry, this easy-to-use website has you covered.

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3. Gmail Time Zone Tricks

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If you don’t want to use an external web app, you can keep tabs on international time zones right in your Gmail inbox. Simply select the “Labs” icon (the little green beaker) at the top of Gmail and scroll down to enable the “Sender Time Zone” feature. This will allow you to see what the recipient’s current local time is when you send them messages, and allay those worries about why they haven’t answered you yet: They’re probably asleep.
If you need a quick way to keep track of multiple time zones right from your inbox, you can add a Google Gadget to your side bar that displays the relevant info. You’ll need to enable this feature in Gmail Labs, so click that green beaker and enable the “Add any gadget by URL” option.
In a new tab, head over to the Google Gadgets Directory and type “Time Zones” in the search bar. There are a variety of time zone gadgets (of various quality), but a good option is one called World Time Zones.
Back in Gmail, click “Settings,” and you’ll now see a tab marked “Gadgets” has appeared. From the “World Time Zones” Gadget page, you’ll need to grab the second URL (which starts after “&url=” in the address bar, and ends in .XML). Paste it into Gmail’s gadget dialog and hit “Add.” Now, if you scroll down the left side of you inbox, you’ll see the gadget has appeared, and you can flip through all the world’s time zones without ever leaving Gmail.

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4. World Time Server

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The World Time Server is another helpful resource for all your international planning needs. The site shows you the current time and date for any city, country or time zone, and has a self-maintained database that adjusts for Daylight Saving Time.
Here too is a time converter, but with twist that’s great for planning long distance interactions in real time. If you were planning a meeting with a client via Skype, or if you were to live stream a presentation that you wanted clients in different cities to be able to watch at the same time, then this time converter might be of use.
After you’ve set the time for your event, you’ll be sent a link that you can then e-mail to clients or post on your blog or Twitter profile so that people can figure out at what local time your event is starting.
There is also a meeting planner that allows you to choose up to five states, provinces or countries so you can organize the best time to have a conference call for all the parties involved. The site also offers local news and weather updates — because it never hurts to show a client that you know what’s happening in their neck of the woods.

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5. Time and Date

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Time and Date has the same features as the sites listed above, plus a few extras. Calendars and holiday observances are listed here and broken down by country. They are particularly helpful for scheduling important deals or conversations since each country has its own civic holidays or widely observed religious ones that differ from the North American schedule.
The site is updated regularly with news on any changes countries have made regarding their daylight saving time schedule. Another useful feature is a pull down menu of international dialing codes, since it’s not always as simple as dialing one and then the phone number to call out.

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6. Every Time Zone

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Every Time Zone is a simple, nicely designed site that is perfect for quickly accessing time zones and date changes. Your local time is generated from your IP address and is displayed as a fluorescent green bar. Other regions are listed above and below your local time, giving you an instant look at the time difference. You can drag your local time tab forward or backward to measure specific time differences as well.
With these tools, you should be more than able to manage your international meeting times. Let us know in the comments below what works best for you and how you manage working with companies in different time zones.

How Businesses Are Unleashing Their Employees’ Social Media Potential

We know it’s a brave new world for consumers and brands. If United breaks your guitar, or your Maytag doesn’t work properly, you can take on the company that messed with you via social media — and you may well win.

But technology empowerment works both ways. Consumers can take a stand against poor business practices, and brands can empower their customers like never before.

Mobile is a hotbed of innovation in this department. Point your phone at a restaurant and see if it’s worth an evening out. With the addition of cloud services, you get stuff like the iPhone app from UK car dealer Auto Trader, which can tell you the make, model and the price of used cars just from snapping a license plate photo.

To take it one step further, companies that invest in technology and innovation can not only sell more products with digital tools, but empower their own employees. Below, we’ve highlighted some examples of businesses that are using technology creatively to solve customer issues and spur innovation.

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Workers Already Use Third-Party Tech for Business

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Based on a survey we did late last year at Forrester Research, 27% of information workers regularly use login-required web sites that the company doesn’t sanction, like LinkedIn or Google Docs, for work purposes. Around 12% download and use their own applications not provided by the company, like video editors, and 8% are using smartphones they pay for themselves for work purposes. Unlike in Dilbert’s office, IT doesn’t control technology within corporations any more — workers do.

I argue that this lack of control inside and outside companies isn’t a sign of the apocalypse; it’s the beginning of a new way of working — one in which employees know their job is to use technology to solve customer problems.

Don’t be surprised if this proposition elicits echoes of The Cluetrain Manifesto. Ten years ago, this idea was radical, and people who espoused it were screaming in the wilderness. Now it’s actually working, even at large companies.

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Principles at Work

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At Best Buy, CMO Barry Judge encourages staff to come up with “half-baked ideas,” which the company works on and then rolls out. For example, Remix is a project which opened up the company’s website API so others could build sites or apps on top of it. Using Best Buy’s wealth of product, pricing and image data, developers could implement useful third-party applications to track rapidly dropping retail prices, for example.

Twelpforce, a shared Twitter support service, was programmed by Ben Hedrington, a Best Buy website staffer, in his spare time. It was rolled out by John Bernier, who solved problems like how 2,500 hourly staffers (Blue Shirts, Geek Squad, and the like) could share a Twitter service without violating labor laws. These are empowered employees.

At Vail Resorts, CEO Rob Katz radically shifted the company’s media policy, embracing short-lead advertising and social media. He hired social media staffers instead of buying magazine ads, and trained the staff on how to turn pictures, videos and tweets into fast-spreading, word-of-mouth ads.

At Dell, there are so many social initiatives going on that Manish Mehta, who reports directly to the CMO, runs a council of high level execs who share best practices weekly.

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The Rise of Empowerment “Heroes”

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The companies that work like this act quickly. They blunt customer complaints and turn detractors into promoters. They innovate as a matter of course. The reason is that all the employees feel empowered to create and contribute, rather than leave it to their research and developments departments.

I call these people “HEROes:” Highly Empowered and Resourceful Operatives. They typically know more about customers than they do about technology, and companies need more of them.

HEROes need tools to understand the challenges they face. They need managers who support them rather than squelch their initiative. They need IT people who give them technology advice, resources, and help them to see pitfalls and risks, and identify when their projects are ready to scale up.

This isn’t a pipe dream. I’ve seen HERO-powered companies innovating, and there are more every day. This mentality is the future of daily work, and it’s an inversion in the power structure of companies. The companies that have figured this out have a head start on the rest. Does yours?

Embrace social media messages as viral marketing platform

Drip, drip, drip. One comment on a blog post. One retweet of a point of view. One new Facebook friend. You might not even realize while it is happening but over time an audience is developing that is genuinely interested in what you have to say and gives you permission to share it. Individuals are learning how to share their stories and gaining confidence by participating actively in social networks. Personal networks are the new marketing channels and marketing has become the art of dribs and drabs. The problem is that most organizations haven’t figured it out. 

The marketing model of deploying large internal teams of marketing specialists supported by even larger advertising and public relations firms is dead. It is exciting to be a participant in the seismic shift away from the old models of mass marketing and communication. The days of the big campaign developed behind closed doors followed by a grand unveiling composed of orchestrated media placements and road-show whistle-stops are behind us. 

Now the message is developed and honed daily. You don’t need an army of specialists to tell you what the message is. You just need to put your genuine ideas out in public every day so a community of interest can provide immediate feedback. They can help you improve and share your ideas with their networks. Being genuine is valued above all else. No need to assign the task of sharing your idea or message through a third party. Share them yourself.

This shift must be driving traditional marketing types and communications firms crazy. The industry was built on a foundation of “controlling the message” and a secret sauce that only the experts possessed to unlock access to big media outlets. Imagine the horror when huge campaigns are ripped apart within 24 hours of release by the viral masses or when an undiscovered talent like Susan Boyle can become an overnight global sensation.

Dribs and drabs sound inefficient and even dangerous to someone who grew up in an industrial era when marketing was about controlling the message, leveraging marketing experts, and using mass-media channels to reach a target market segment. Marketing and communications was a protected function. God forbid anyone outside of the chosen functions should speak on behalf of or about the company. Social media has blown up traditional marketing, and most organizations I interact with are struggling with how to manage the new world where individuals are empowered communicators.

Communication is personal, and everyone has a role to play. The world of personal and organizational communication is merging whether we want it to or not. I have talked to many active participants on social media platforms who are constrained or even blocked from communicating while at work or about work after hours. This is silly. Organizations are missing an amazing opportunity to virally share their stories and to tap into the networks of all stakeholders. Organizations need to trust employees, contractors, suppliers and customers to build and strengthen they networks of supporters and fans that are the most important marketing asset today. 

Organizations should be turning all stakeholders into active storytellers and passionate supporters. Accentuate and build on the positive. Forget trying to hide the negative; respond, learn and improve from it. It is impossible to control communications about your organization. Everyone should be encouraged to communicate openly, and large marketing departments should be replaced with listening departments to learn from what is being shared. 

The learning curve to go from industrial-era mass marketing to personalized social-media marketing is steep but rewarding. The most important rule is that everyone gets to play. I mean everyone. Celebrate the dribs and drabs.