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Feb 12 2008

Three Big Takeaways from the Mobile World Congress

February 12, 2008 – 2:59 pm

mwc_logo This year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona — the most expansive wireless telecom show in the world — highlighted the impact social computing and entertainment is making in wireless.  While WOM marketers and PR pros may be inclined to dismiss marketing as a holy grail that’s never been achieved, they’d be wise to keep close tabs. Things are moving fast. 

Of particular importance: most global internet users access the Internet through their phones, not more expensive compurters. Operators are moving towards a flat rate data package between $20-$40 a month in an effort to augment their voice revenues. To get subscribers to adapt data, mobile operators are doing everything in their power to push data applications like video, social networks and local search to the handset.

As a a result, we are seeing a new wave of dynamic handsets and applications from many manufacturers.  New players are creating social networks, and mega Internet players like Apple and Google are trying to get into the game. It’s exciting, and you cannot help but sense the exciting optimism from attendees as they approach this immediate, wide open opportunity. Of course with new media adoption, comes new media marketing.

Here are my three big takeaways from this show for marketers:

1) Local search is here.  There were several companies taking advantage of white and yellow page directories mashed up with social ratings AND maps from Tele-Atlas, Google Maps and Nokia’s Navteq. Thanks to GPS chips getting added to many handsets on the market, navigation is already making huge strides. 

Next up is socializing location… and adding local advertising.  Google is already serving up GPS and cell-site driven ads in Europe.  U.S. operators are a barrier in the U.S., but the capability is available. It’s only a matter of time now.

2) Social networks for mobile are coming fast and heavy.  Operators are not thrilled with Facebook and MySpace’s approach to social networking and the lack of revenue it creates. As a result, they are actively exploring for more local and geographically specific solutions that they can have more influence in.  A flurry of networks are launching, and some are succeeding ( a full report on individual networks will be featured on Now Is Gone tomorrow morning). That means marketers will need to get ready for mobile social marketing.

3) Carriers vs. Handset Manufacturers vs. Internet Services.  The big fight between operators, manufacturers and content providers for subscribers’ minds and dollars is intense.  When carriers win this, you end-up with backwards markets like the U.S.  As the battle proceeds, so does innovation.  More than anything this power struggle is the greatest barrier to mobile social media.

Again, mobile social media and local search are not an immediate trends. This is particularly true for American marketers who can enjoy another year or two of status quo thanks to our backwards wireless carriers. But don’t be surprised to see more and more energy and headlines driven to the handset… Literally.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (3)

Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

February 12, 2008 – 1:14 am

BoF2008 Michael Dell was interviewed this week by Shel Israel for his SAP Global Survey on social media. The positive impact that Dell has seen since implementing a blog and social media campaign can be attributed to the idea that “Dell gets it.” A great example of how a CEO understands that losing message control can benefit a company.

Igor Beuker of ViralBlog shows us Jeep’s new campaign and states his belief that companies need a traditional PR and media agency as well as a social media agency. He thinks that brand marketers are not able to understand the importance of SEO, SEM, SMO and SMA as well as those who are specialists.

ReadWriteWeb discusses that the current state of the economy and recession may have little impact on Web 2.0 and beyond. Entrepreneurs now have a unique opportunity to get in the game, and it’s a great time for new ventures. New companies and new industries are born from a change in behavior due to recession. “This is not our bubble.”

Social media fatigue seems to be making a splash, according to Nick O’Neill who shares a great picture of a social media map. Between web and mobile access, it’s clear that anyone can stay connected, whether they want to or not. Too much to do coupled with too many ways to do it can all lead up to, well, a social media headache. If you’re still feeling a bit ovewhelmed, check out this post by Matt Heinz with tips on managing your email inbox.

Media 2.0 shares that social networking is not the danger that many parents think it is. In fact, it’s instant messaging and chatrooms that often get teens in trouble.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Larissa Fair | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (0)
Feb 11 2008

Social Media Club DC – February Meeting

February 11, 2008 – 11:58 am

Hot off the presses, we’re announcing the SMC-DC meet-up for February! Our friend who is “kind of a big deal”, Aaron Brazell of Technosailor and District of Corruption will headline the event for a discussion and Q&A session about his work as Director of Technology at b5media and social media strategies and personal branding. We’re looking forward to it and hope he cleans up as nicely as he did for the Julia Nixon concert. (Kidding)

n31200347_32062359_2328The topic will be “Blog Draft Day: Making it into the Bigs” and feature Aaron’s insight on the technical and personal branding issues that social media “celebrities” can often face.

Aaron will discuss the types of social media used as well as the benefits and challenges of managing blogs for “A-listers”. For example, b5media manages bloggers Darren Rowse of Problogger, Brian Clark from Copyblogger, Spencer Yip from Siliconera.com, Liz Strauss from Successful-blog.com and Glen Stansberry from lifedev.net; the size of these sites exposes them to many issues, including downtime.

Please RSVP by Tuesday, February 19 to Larissa Fair.

Special thanks to Viget Labs for hosting the event.

Date: Thursday, February 21, 2008

Time: 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Location:

Viget Labs headquarters

400 S. Maple Avenue, Suite 200
Falls Church, VA 22046

Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=8013443257

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Larissa Fair | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (5)

Hip, Slick and Useless

February 11, 2008 – 2:35 am

VanillaIce The crush is on. Almost every company, client and person I talk to in corporate marketing wants to create a social media program. But there’s a lot of execution without thinking. 

It’s hip, slick and social to have a blog and a Facebook profile, but really, so what? If companies don’t think about their efforts in the larger marketing context as well as the unique needs of social communities, then their efforts will be useless.

The end result? We’re going to be treated to a deluge of bad social media from companies.  And in six months we will be hearing cries about how it didn’t work. But the fault does not lie in the medium, rather it’s in the strategy and approach.

The 2008 social media boom is very reminiscent of the mid 90s when everyone needed a web site, but didn’t think about outcomes. Lots of bad sites and mistakes were made.  Really, web 2.0 came along as web 1.0 was finally maturing.

Six Common Mistakes

Companies would be well advised to take the time to engage in social media intentionally, with their marketing goals and the long-haul in mind. Here are six common mistakes that should be avoided:

  1. Launching a social media effort without determining outcomes, calls to action, and measurement.  Examine the motives behind launching that blog, filming a "viral YouTube video," or starting that Facebook Group. If companies don’t have a strategy behind their effort, they will lose time, money and opportunity.
  2. Talking about your company instead of their communities’ interests. It’s about them, not you. Talking about yourself is antisocial and very web 1.0.  No one wants a daily updated brochure from company X. See seven principles of community engagement.
  3. Creating corporate social media without a program to get it socialized. There’s way too many corporate social media efforts now for your effort to just stand out because it’s been started. Where’s the so what?  How will your company grab the attention of its stakeholders?
  4. Blogging because every one else is.  Blogs are great, but they require a lot of maintenance and time. This may not be the best engagement strategy for your firm if the company.. Blogs are great for education, position as a market leader, call to action for larger social media initiatives, or for establishing brand reputation. A strong blogger relations and social network program can be more effective for earned media opportunities. Example: Nikon camera program executed by Tom Biro and co.
  5. Letting IT departments determine the best blog platform, usually the one that comes with their server packs.  Bad idea. IT doesn’t understand social media marketing and the benefits of WordPress, or lesser platforms like TypePad.
  6. Thinking mass instead of micro.  Facebook’s a great contact manager, but is it the right place?  Are your actual stakeholders out there?  Does your community use another, more granular social network as a back channel?  Are you and/or your agency constantly monitoring your community’s evolution and consumption needs?

Unfortunately, in some competitive situations, it’s become apparent that agencies and consultants have greatly contributed to this mess. Agencies will tell you they know what they are doing, and learn on your dollar.  The price: Lost opportunity, time and financial resources.

Companies need to take the time to find socially engaged companies.  Don’t hire people that without a track record. Make sure the actual team performing the work have successfully blogged (please, a bare minimum 20 authority on Technorati), are enjoying social network engagement effort, and have a track record of past successes. And if they don’t advise you on the above six matters, know they are incompetent and continue with your selection process.

More information on social media consultant hiring processes is available from B.L. Ochman, Chris Brogan and Now Is Gone.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (19)
Feb 9 2008

I Heart Wireless

February 9, 2008 – 6:29 pm

I have some history in the wireless telecommunications business, dating back 12 years now. So attending this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC), the most expansive wireless telecom show on earth comes with great pleasure.

SceneoftheCrime

 

The convergence of wireless telecom, computing and entertainment is evident throughout MWC-targeted marketing. Unlike the United States, most of the world accesses the Internet through their wireless handsets.  Thus mobile-enabled social networks like Facebook and Mosh are extremely hot this year, and also hold great promise for future marketing.  Additional highlights include Robert Redford’s speech on Wednesday.

There’s a lot of big money in town, too.  For example, huge placards from Samsung in almost every square and circle.

Samsung'sBigPresence

smallsmartOf course, there’s bad marketing, too. Is this ridiculous or what? LG’s marketing campaign here in Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress is "Smartly Intelligent." Even I — a person often accused of treating the English language like Patton on a military campaign — hate ad slogans like this. It drives me crazy in an Eat, Shoots and Leaves kind of way.  Stupidly Dumb would be better!

SmartlyIntelligent

Of course, minor annoyances like this are quickly forgotten in beautiful Barcelona.

museum

Another report from the Mobile World Congress will be posted this Tuesday!

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (2)
Feb 8 2008

One, Two, Three Strikes You’re Out

February 8, 2008 – 10:03 am

While it seems the three month old strike between the Writer’s Guild of America and production companies seems to be finally coming to an end, the media frenzy surrounding it is showing no signs of letting up. PR Week recently turned to opinion leaders in the blogosphere to see what kinds of conversations are happening around the strike.

Blog coverage of the strike has not been able to match traditional media coverage; but two thirds of all bloggers seem to side with the striking writers, perhaps because many relate since they themselves are writers.

The analysis was based on 469 blog postings from Jan. 1-28 2008 by BuzzLogic.

Traditional media has focused much of its attention of the impact of the strike on the Oscars. PR Week reports a recent Google search revealed more than 540 articles on the subject. And just this week Vanity Fair made headlines canceling its multimillion dollar Oscar Party, in sympathy with the striking writers.

As of now, when it comes to the Oscars, less than 17 percent of bloggers are talking about how the strike could impact the ceremony. A Technorati search revealed 661 hits.

No doubt bloggers are online influencers. It’d be interesting to find out how many striking writers are actually bloggers themselves. More importantly, it’d be great to see this strike finally come to an end.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Michele Capots | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (0)
Feb 7 2008

Nettie Hartsock Discusses SXSW, Books, and Over Indulging on Social Media

February 7, 2008 – 4:31 pm

nettie-willie Book publicist, blogger and former tech writer Nettie Hartsock and I had a chance to sit down and chat.  Nettie is a veteran e-business journalist and PR Marathoner. Her name can even be Googled with some notable results. Our conversation covered a wide variety of topics , including:

If you prefer to download, visit media.libsyn.com/media/geoliv/nettiehartsock.wav.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (1)

PR’s Glass Ceiling

February 7, 2008 – 11:07 am

Perhaps you’ve noticed. It’s not a new issue. According to Kami, 87 percent of top marketing bloggers on the Ad Age 150 are men (prompting last summer’s W list meme). And 90-95 percent of the top twenty bloggers on Brendan Cooper’s Friendly PR Index are men. This overwhelming statistic reflects recent social media speaking trends, too (image credit: dunechaser).

x-men

There are some reasons for this:

  • PR agency and consulting life can be grueling, and many folks opt for corporate jobs by the time they hit their 30s.
  • Men often migrate to sales in general (a very male dominated profession), and power in business is often granted to bread-winners.
  • Balancing career and family, a choice thrust on women more than men (though their are plenty of great professional Dads in the same situation, too).
  • If a mom chooses both a full-time career and motherhood, time management becomes essential. Consistently blogging 3-5 times a week is probably not the top priority.

Yet, these — and many other possible reasons — do not account for such an imbalance. In fact, a majority of women are still not found in the upper echelons of PR agency management either. And we are talking about an industry that has an overwhelming female majority within its workforce.

expert-silverman-marciaExaminations of the actual ranks of PR firms shows change may be in the works. We are seeing some movement with Marcia Silverman’s chief executive leadership at Ogilvy. Only twenty-five percent of Edelman’s leadership is female. But about forty percent of Fleishman’s leadership is female.

It’s the same thing in smaller agencies, too. CEOs and the very top leaders are men. But some agencies are seeing significant minorities and even majorities of women in their leadership. How about Todd Defren’s SHIFT’? Better than most with the ladies taking 40 percent of the senior leadership.

One of the more well known boutiques — SpeakerBox — in DC is run by Elizabeth Shea. But then you have Strategic, Merritt, Levick, etc. all run by men. The percentage is the same. O’Keeffe & Company run by local government PR guru Steve O’Keeffe has more than 50% women in his senior leadership, coming close to matching industry workforce levels.

Obviously, my little company is the same. We are about to hire our first senior manager, all of the candidates are women. Given the actual industry’s workforce this seems right to me.

Hopefully, progress will continue in agency ranks, and spread to the PR blogosphere, too. Because approximately 90 percent male leadership seems just wrong.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in PR Industry Trends | Comments (26)
Feb 6 2008

Widgets for PR People

February 6, 2008 – 8:09 am

Livingston client BIA Information Network, maker of the Active Access brand of widgets, has teamed with The Public Relations Society of America’s National Capital Chapter to release a PR version of its widget! The desktop application keeps users apprised of upcoming networking events, programs, news, educational events, job postings, and podcasts.

The ActiveAccess application has been branded the National Capital Channel and can be downloaded through the chapter’s homepage or directly at http://www.prsa-ncc.org/content/view/386/25. The application provides a small branded Channel desktop icon on a user’s computer that will remain available whether minimized or enlarged. Information is live, pumped through users’ ethernet (or other Internet) connections.

117877835_765c5c8312 As a "PR 2.0 person," I find this particularly interesting because it taps into two trends: Widgets and the need to consolidate content (otherwise known as social-media burn-out). Per the web strategist, web widgets are one of the strongest growing application areas of the Internet. Anyone who has been involved in online worlds can attest to the un-manageability of the many, many data forms thrown at us (Image credit: tooknap).

"We all know our inbox is overflowing with emails that we mentally segment into ‘must reads’ and ‘like to’ reads so it’s easy to miss updates from groups that we really do want to track," said MacKenzie Lovings from Active Access. "The PRSA application sits separate from the inbox… yet appropriately engages members with one-click access to valuable information and also alerts them to upcoming events. This is valuable because it makes it easy to be informed without much effort on PRSA members’ part. "

And we all know how much time PR people like to vest into reading publications.

A key component of the PRSA widget is the ability to customize. Because the PRSA-NCC can continuously change the content, the organization sees the new tool as a component of the Chapter’s new member communication and retention initiatives. ActiveAccess can also be customized among the chapter membership to deliver various types of information, including audio and video, or other targeted content based on user preferences and even zip code.

Larissa Fair is out sick today. Her regular Wednesday column will resume next week.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing, PR Industry Trends | Comments (2)

Let’s Talk About Now Is Gone on February 16

February 6, 2008 – 2:59 am

On Saturday, February 16 from 1-5 p.m., I will moderate four consecutive one hour sessions on Now Is Gone for the my ooVoo day project. If you can’t catch me on the road, this is the perfect opportunity to have a deep dive on social media and how it can benefit your organization.

Here’s how it works, visit the my ooVoo day project site and sign up. You’ll download the software (for Mac or PC – both are still in beta). We are limited to five people in each session so don’t wait too long!

ooVoo is thanking us by sponsoring the the Frozen Pea Fund, a fund established to support the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer campaign, in honor of blogger, Twitterer and cancer patient Susan Reynolds. Thanks to Scott Monty for inviting me to participate in this great project!

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (1)