Polygraph Media Blog

SXSW Interactive 2012 Observations

Some thoughts following the blur that was SXSW Interactive 2012:

• I very much agree with the sentiment that "nobody won SXSW" this year, but I also don't think you can expect that every year.  Twitter "won" the conference in 2007.  4sq arguably stole the show in 2009.  GroupMe "won" in 2011.  In my mind, the latter won it only because the tech press had to give the title to *someone*.  But also look at the years... in the even years nobody "won" at all per se.  You don't have a  "press-designated" winner every year and this year was no different.
• Location-based services proved again that their primary use case is in places where a lot of people are in the same place at the same time.
• Interesting to me that Facebook, Apple, Twitter, and Square... amongst others... had little/no presence at SXSW.  A few folks wandering around but no "presence".
• Again, the action for startups was in the hallways and backroom meetings, small group VIP events, etc.  The action for enterprise folks remains in the sessions and in the private parties, where basic education takes place.  I don't mean that to sound bad, but it's almost two different shows depending on why you're there.

Looking forward to a great show in 2013!

Polygraph Media - Adventures in Big Social Data

Sorry we've been so quiet lately - have been hard at work taking a product to the marketplace.  We are jumping into the big social data business feet first.  You can sign up for our private beta at http://www.polygraphmedia.com.

In addition, Tommy Perkins (who traveled with me to Denver) made some great observations in his blog post yesterday.  I encourage you to check it out.

All told, we are very excited about these new opportunities and we see a lot of potential in big social data.

Thoughts for Corporate Marketing Executives

This post is a long time coming -- as our company has shifted focus a bit to brands, I have been thinking a lot lately about how bigger companies make decisions and draw conclusions about social media and where the will focus attention.  For every person who says that they want to increase Facebook investments (a good idea considering the data), there is a person who says that they also need to increase investments in QR codes or Instagram (a bad idea considering the data).  This coming from a set of customers that is supposedly concerned about Social ROI?

Pardon the generalization, but I've found that corporate middle-manager thinking about marketing is about as paradoxical as it gets.  The world's best companies optimize their operations and their marketing campaigns on data.  The top companies hire the best and brightest from the world's top business schools to analyze outcomes and redirect tactics.  Yet when it comes to marketing and social media, I often hear the most optimistic and laughable things about social media from brand stewards and corporate marketers.  Some of the biggest cheerleaders about social media come from the corporate world.  Their observations are based on personal preferences and usage patterns, and are devoid of persuasive statistics as if numbers are unimportant.  Very few (when pressed for specifics) can tell you that a meaningful business outcome improved dramatically because of using anything other than Facebook and maybe Twitter.

Why is this the case?

1. Individuals want a job in a hot startup & get attention by showing support.
2. Individuals want to stand out from their "moribund" corporate employer that "doesn't innovate".
3. Individuals are not held to a high standard about "data-driven" thinking.
4. The brand's need to "innovate" outweighs the need to develop Social ROI.  Put differently, the brand needs to connect with younger demographics and is willing to accept some inefficient spend to experiment.
5. Agencies and experts dominate thought leadership, and the echo chamber is winning.

The first two make a lot of sense when you consider the divergent interests of individuals and the companies they work for.  A middle manager may be making a great career move by encouraging new technologies -- it may land him/her in a job, an advisory role, a spot among experts in the social media community, VIP invites at events, etc.  Individual branding trumps all in today's world, and that's just a reality of marketing in the present day.

#s 3 and 4 are more management issues -- which may or may not be an accident.  Brands seeking to redefine themselves, especially those that are viewed as being "old fashioned", are desperate to do anything that appears to be innovative.  A handful of experiments may just provide the serendipity needed to do something meaningful and important down the road.  But I find all too often that the middle managers report to senior executives with very little understanding of social media platforms, much less how to use them for marketing purposes.  Sorry, but if you don't use at least Facebook regularly, it's hard to coach middle managers on what success looks like.  So often times, middle managers are really creating the agenda for "social marketing" whatever it means, and ROI is tough to get because 1) they may not be doing the right things, and 2) their managers may not know exactly how to improve the situation.

#5 is a misalignment of incentives.  Over the last decade, agencies have done a particularly crafty job of getting between corporate marketing dollars and technology providers who make things simple.  Agencies have sold social media marketing, management, monitoring, community management, and a wealth of supporting platforms as a cocktail of unnecessarily confusing, yet important set of tools that any "smart" business would utilize.  Of course, managing it all is easier if you just hire the agency. ;-)   A vast majority of thought leaders work for the very agencies that have gotten so adept at selling this complexity to the corporate world.  Oddly enough, the skill sets required to conduct good social media marketing and community management are not terribly complicated.  But because corporate marketing groups don't yet have the talent to develop an internal competency -- intern to executive -- they outsource this.

But to repeat -- the very people selling highly profitable agency retainers to your company are the ones setting the thought leadership agenda.

Now before anyone accuses me otherwise, I am a friend to agencies.  There are a lot of great people in agencies and I have a lot of friends there.  But if you're an exec managing a brand, you have to recognize this dynamic to do your job well.

I suspect that this tech boom cycle will end a lot like the last one.  Companies that provide real value will survive.  The vast majority that don't will not survive.  Brands and bigger companies will gradually bring things in house as they get smarter.  As new technologies mature and get "less cool", investments in them will wane.  Investments in things that truly do move the marketing needle will increase and will disrupt the old way of doing things... much as you're starting to see investments increase in Facebook over existing web sites and e-mail.

But the way to get ahead of the curve today is to rein in middle managers and talk in terms of data -- measurable success.  That is, if you really care.

2011: Social 2.0 for the Enterprise

Sometimes, it is a lonely road to see things too early.

Many of you loyal readers who keep up with this blog among others have been the internal champion for social media since LinkedIn came onto the scene in 2003.  You've probably endured a lot of questions, harassment over ROI, criticism from fellow employees, etc.  Lord knows that while I was preaching the good word at Microsoft in 2007, people probably thought I was a bit off my rocker.

If the previous paragraph describes you, you've probably had a pretty good 2010.  Social marketing (broadly) is probably at the forefront of many of your laggard colleagues' minds.  Budget is likely no longer an issue and you're probably no longer the crazy visionary guy/gal in your company.

In fact, your company/brand probably now has a presence across all the major social networks.

So we've entered a new phase for the enterprise -- one where the social concept has more or less been sold as an important part of the marketing mix.  When this happens in any maturing industry, problems go a level deeper -- beyond the basics of "should we do this?".  Opportunities exist because people put their heads together to think of how the concepts can make the enterprise more efficient and more profitable.  We're just at the beginning.

So are the elements of the next wave of social in the enterprise?

• rationalized - Management of disparate assets, once created by well-intentioned employees seeking to meet customer needs, must be rationalized.  Once distributed decisions about tactics must now be rolled up into a clear, rational strategy for how social fits into the marketing mix.
• "metric-ed" - "Soft" social benefits will increasingly be rolled into higher level metrics to indicate health, engagement, and ultimately profitability of marketing efforts.  I'd contend that executives have sought this for awhile (e.g. debates over the ROI of social) but this is the year some of those metrics can be collected and believed.
• integrated - Social has clearly been disconnected from other marketing programs in many companies, non-profits, etc.  As people fully realize the extent to which Facebook social plug-ins can help them, they''ll integrate campaigns more.  Social will be a part of the strategy, but not *the* strategy.  The same goes for mobile as well, but maybe in 2012.
• optimized - As sophistication increases in the enterprise, marketers will need to make sure their efforts get the most bang for the buck.  This applies to content marketing, social advertising, and any attempt to take a campaign cross-platform.  So this will be a year where marketers focus more on things like Edgerank and positive outcomes from Facebook advertising (which will need a much broader set of tools to allow for tracking and intelligence).
• de-risked - Marketers who seek more "engagement" with customers in the form of likes, comments, contest submissions, reviews, and other user-generated content will see more of the dirty side of user-generated content.  A "de-risking" of the system will be called for in 2011. Facebook has already added a rudimentary Spam filter to Facebook Pages, for example. Companies like Southwest Airlines, Chick-fil-A, and Ferrero Rocher among many others have endured regrettable incidents on their Facebook Pages.
• applied to new areas - Finally, I think you'll begin to see some examples of the use of social technologies and concepts to new parts of the enterprise:  finance, HR, operations, etc. Products like CubeDuel and Honestly are fascinating yet scary in the HR space.  Expect more in this area.

Overall, the maturation of social in the enterprise means that we're witnessing the birth of a cottage industry of social services/software for corporate marketing and operations.  I don't know how long these battles will be waged, but clearly times are changing an opportunity is being unlocked all around us.

Believers and Non-Believers

Since leaving Microsoft just under 18 months ago, I've worked with a number of incumbent organizations to help them modernize their businesses with Web 2.0 themes:  social media, real-time, self-serve, collaboration, etc. I've worked with government folks, people in local media companies, publishers, consulting firms, major technology companies, auto manufacturers, etc. on consulting projects, social media implementations, new workflows/company policy, new business opportunities, and initiatives to improve efficiency.  I've spoken at industry events as a presenter, a panelist, and a moderator.

All these experiences have led me to believe that in business today, there is a big and increasing gap between "believers" and "non-believers" in change/modernization.

I would be painting with a broad brush if I were to say it is a generational gap.  It isn't at all.  Nor is it just a social media or Web 2.0 thing.  It's bigger than that.  It's generally a gap between folks who see that now, more than ever, business moves too fast to not think critically and make quick adjustments to take advantage of trends that will ultimately impact both the top and bottom line.

Let's step back and look at what is happening broadly in the economy.  Despite the rosy predictions, the fact is consumers are revisiting their personal spending today.  If we are going to even remotely revert to mean levels of debt in society, it will be at least a 3-5 year trend -- not just a mere blip on the radar.  Mish Shedlock touches on this theme of the Age of Frugality repeatedly in his fantastic blog that I highly recommend.  Like it or not, America (and the World for that matter) is going on a diet.  Collectively, we mortgaged the future for the present... and the future is now.

With lower consumer spending, there are increasing pressures to do more with less inside the corporation and perhaps redefine business for the future.  In this sense, big institutions of all kinds really have a lot more in common than anyone really thinks.  I touched on this a few months ago when I said that Microsoft's problems and those faced by the newspaper industry are pretty much the same, but today I'd say that large incumbents in a variety of industries are all in the same situation.

I don't know what to make of it just yet, nor do I know exactly how to profit from it at this moment.  But I've never seen people so divided in large organizations as they seem to be today -- people who bring about change vs. people who want to maintain the status quo.  I see a new example of it almost every day.

We are indeed living in an unprecedented time when the business landscape will be shaken to its core... where businesses will be redefined... where new brands will thrive... where old ones will fizzle... and where a lot of companies that can't adapt intelligently with limited information will die.  Now if someone could just tell us all what "adapt intelligently" means, we'd all be OK. ;-)

But there are no answers and there is not enough data to tell you exactly what to do.  There won't be -- technology, innovation, and advancement are by definition impossible to project into the future.  You have to feel your way through the jungle.

Don't confuse me for a social media zealot

I have had a few conversations with colleagues, ex-colleagues, and current clients that lead me to believe that they think I'm a social media zealot.  While a lot of what I do is tied in some way to social networks, I find it necessary to set the record straight tonight.  Here's what I believe:

• Social media is old technology, but mainstream adoption of it is a new phenomenon.  Nobody knows for sure if it is the next wave of computing or a fad.
• I *think* that Facebook has a few big advantages that make it the leading contender for social media dominance.
• But it is entirely feasible that the great advancement of the social networking age is not social networking, but rather the mainstream adoption of real-time data/information.
• Should things move in this direction, Twitter is undeniably in the lead here as they truly own (shaky as it is) the infrastructure for this along with a fairly large user base.  But it's too early to tell whether or not they'll actually win because switching costs are relatively low and Twitter is probably still a little too buggy to be considered "reliable infrastructure".
• I would not be shocked at all to see a major player (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Yahoo!) launch and have some success with a Twitter-like product.
• The combination of blogging, micro-blogging, and social media have created a truly democratized platform that allows anyone to be a publisher.  This has been discussed ad nauseum by people in technology and observers.  However, changes to consumer behavior as a result of these things have made the dissemination of information far easier for "trusted" sources.  Very few things actually need to be printed anymore now that the infrastructure has caught up to consumer behavior.  Or is it the other way around?

Perhaps most importantly, all of this means that Internet Marketing has gotten a lot more complicated.  At one time, you just had to rank high on search engines.  Then the opportunity came about to buy space at the top of search engines.  Now to be totally effective, you have to do both of those *plus* make strategic decisions & execute on social media, Facebook, Twitter, employee blogging, and "real-time" customer service.

We don't have new social media opportunities today, but we do have new internet marketing opportunities.  Social media opens up bi-directional communication with previously anonymous customers.  It's an evolutionary, not revolutionary, change that requires you to think more holistically than ever before.

Social Media Permanence & Implications

I thought I'd briefly talk today about permanence as it relates to social media.  Specifically, the fact that once you obtain a friend/follower/fan, it's really hard to lose that person.  It is perhaps one of the most understated benefits of establishing a good presence for yourself or your brand while it is relatively easy.

Facebook and LinkedIn require a two-way handshake for people to identify each other as friends/trusted contacts.  The social contract of friending and acknowledging trust is an important one that happens at the point of first request.  Think about when someone friends you:  you get a notification over e-mail and you then have to decide what to do with it.  Does this person fit your "friending policy"?  Would you want to associate yourself with him/her?  And is this a contact who you will regret not friending some day if you are perhaps on the fence?  As I've pointed out before, most people start off with rigid rules then relax them after gray areas become more often than you'd think.

Twitter is a little different.  Following is a much more common and lower impact decision.  You get notifications from a person until you are tired of hearing from him/her.  As long as you're interested in the subject matter, you remain a follower.  If someone takes his pedestal too far, if he/she comments too often, or if he/she changes the purpose and/or mix of professional/personal Tweets, that may result in having fewer followers.  I think a lot of the same things are beginning to happen with Facebook Fan Pages.  Like Twitter, a Fan receives content from you on their News Feed on Facebook after they decide to associate with your business or brand.

What does all of this mean for personal and corporate social media strategy?  A few implications come to mind:

• It is relatively easy to establish a presence with followers/fans/friends today in large part because social media execution is not yet standard operating procedure.  It's like creating a powerful corporate Web site was in 1997... on the mind of a lot of companies but not yet in full execution mode everywhere.
• Therefore, it will get *harder* over time to set up an effective social media presence.  i.e. there will be no novelty in getting started with social media say in 2011.  Everyone will have a presence and most innovative ideas will likely have been explored by then.
• Permanence dictates that you won't "lose" friends/fans/follower that you get right now easily... unless you make a big mistake.  Make a friend/fan/follower today and you are likely to keep that person for awhile.  So investments today could pay off for many years to come.
• We are at the beginning of a several year phase where the real meaning of having a large # of fans/followers/friends will take shape.  Nobody knows where it is headed *today*.  But I do think it is relatively safe to say that monetization and ROI will become a lot clearer over time.  What you're doing today with social media is setting the stage for the future of effective advertisement -- you are lining up people who you may market to in the future.

This is the time for experimentation.  We are at a point in the history of the Web where people and brands will try a lot of different things to engage with customers effectively.  Make mistakes now while you can and learn.  You can get away with a lot more today than in the future.

Why we can't all get along on Twitter and what to do about it

Maybe I'm slow, maybe I don't think about these things in an academic sense, I don't know... but it recently occurred to me why Twitter sometimes annoys me.

1) it's every man/woman/bot for him/her/itself,

2) everyone has a different use of Twitter, be it personal, business, or rapidly generating a following,

3) everyone has a different perspective on what the rules are or what they should be,

4) everyone has a loudspeaker.  As @cheeky_geeky so eloquently puts it, Twitter isn't as much a conversational platform as it is a tool for one-way communication.  The only difference is that in real-life, you can occasionally opt to ignore even folks you ordinarily like to hear.

Let's face it.  Statistically, it has to be pretty hard for someone to use Twitter and not be turned off by something they see or someone they follow.

It might be the guy who follows everyone.  It may be the woman who refuses to follow you back when you "do her the favor" of following her.  It may be the shameless self-promoter.  It may be the person who won't stop promoting their business venture that is getting no traction at all.  It may be someone who airs dirty laundry.  It may be a serial flip-flopper... the ass-kisser... the shameless groupie that comments on every semi-insightful point made by "the Twitterati".  It may be someone who annoys you with their political views, which are clearly so important and impactful that they need to be shared with thousands of followers.  I could go on.

The lack of a shared ethos re: Twitter usage is quickly becoming a problem for the Industry's latest darling.

Think about other communication media for a moment.  We've developed accepted practices around e-mail.  We know to be careful with SMS because the recipient is charged a fee for received messages.  Facebook and LinkedIn are largely governed by how their platforms operate... i.e. both people in a "friendship" or "connection" have to accept the other.

In Twitter, the only rule is that everyone can follow anyone... which means that we all approach Twitter with different intentions.  It also means that over time, you can gain less and less insight from data Twitter currently provides.  For instance, at one time early in Twitter's life, you would gauge a User's popularity and/or importance in a community based on the # of followers he/she had.  Now it may just be an indication that someone is a Twitter whore.  ;-)  OK - maybe that is harsh.  It could be an indication that someone is trying to build a following perhaps for business development purposes, and doesn't discriminate when taking on new followers.  My point is that the correlation between followers and a User's reputation is certainly not what it used to be, and it is continuing to trend negatively.

So what does all of this mean?  If Twitter is to continue to thrive, Users will need a way to filter noise and both consume and contribute to the broader community.  Twitter is a pretty good way to follow a few hundred people, but can someone reasonably follow significantly more people?  Not at present.  It doesn't have to be fully conversational in my mind, but it does have to be occasionally conversational.  If it isn't, it won't survive as a means for everyone to hold a loudspeaker and shout things into a deserted forest.

It also means that we all need more insight into the people we choose to follow.  We don't necessarily have enough data to make informed decisions today, so we'll continue to waste time evaluating what we see and what we read.  I'm not sure that is going to last too long.  Maybe I'm wrong.

If you and/or your brand does want to be listened to in Twitter, it's more important than ever to establish a good reputation.  Provide useful content in as human a manner as possible.  Be consistent.  Commit to sharing unique or curated content on a regular cadence that your users can expect.  Rise above and don't annoy.  Set the rules of engagement and you will win, but do so as a trusted, valuable member of the community.

Framework for Broad Web 2.0 Thinking

Having trouble thinking through how Web 2.0 could work for you, your business, or your government agency?  Consider this quick read from Wired.  I really enjoyed the framework -- specifically treating data in terms of how you want information to be shared.

In our consulting business, all of our projects have broken down into one or two of those categories, where we assign metrics to each.  For example

Inward sharing -- how information sharing inside the firewall improves through the use/promotion/adoption of a new wiki, collaborative blog, etc.  Measured in unique users, page views, time spent on site, anecdotes.

Outward sharing -- how siloed internal organizations can better share information with each other to improve decision making.  This one is best suited for the largest companies.  Measured in cross-team collaboration, quicker introduction of new features, and ultimately customer satisfaction.

Inbound sharing -- how Web 2.0 technologies can help make the collection of customer/partner/external stakeholder feedback easier and more cost-effective.  Measured in reduced overall cost, customer/partner satisfaction, improved speed to enhance product/process.

Outbound sharing -- how organizations can get the word out to customers, partners, etc. through the use/promotion/adoption of Web 2.0.  Measured in increased revenues, customer/partner satisfaction, unique users, page views, etc.

Kudos to the authors Mark Drapeau and Lin Wells for applying some structured thinking to Web 2.0... I assume many people, not just those inside government, will benefit from this framework when considering projects for their companies.

Anniversaries

It's been a busy, busy few weeks with the soft launch of the MinutesNotice local advertising network, the Youpons.net local deals/coupons portal, and SXSW Interactive... all of which I'll talk about in more detail in coming days.  Lost amidst all of this are two one-year anniversaries for me: 1) my departure from Microsoft on March 14, 2008, and 2) the start of this blog on March 16, 2008.  Some thoughts on both:

Microsoft -- Leaving Microsoft was professionally one of the easiest things I have ever done.  Why?  I need to take one more shot at an early stage startup.  The demands of life in your 30s are far more significant than the carefree living of your 20s... so I saw my clock ticking to some extent.  It helped that I saw a few business opportunities.  Every fiber of my being told me that I had to make a move away from a stable, and extremely promising future in Redmond.

I do miss some things about Microsoft though... I miss a lot of the people who worked in/around the Web Platform.  It would have been nice to see things through in a few areas.  I helped build a foundation to prioritize the Web from a marketing perspective that simply didn't exist when I started at Microsoft in early 2005.  I take some pride in seeing parts of the vision realized with products, roadmaps, and improved communications with customers.  I also see some things we could have improved while I was there.  I see blind spots that people at Microsoft still have regarding startups and how things get done in a resource constrained environment.  Suffice it to say that it is very interesting to live on both sides of the fence...

Blogging -- In one year's time, I've posted 129 times (or once every ~3 days).  I didn't think I'd have so much to say... but between news/events, developments in our industry, progress we make with our business, events I attend, and most importantly customer interactions across our business I find I still have a lot to say.  I don't think there will ever be a shortage of things to comment on.  Lucky you.

Blogging has proven to be more than an academic exercise for me and for Notice Technologies.  It has proved to be an invaluable way to communicate.  We've told customers about our products and our approach to local advertising.  We've told people about the collaborative blogs and Facebook applications and social presence we've created for consulting clients.  We have had numerous people contact us about a wide range of business proposals, ideas, and other interactions.  Perhaps most importantly though, comments to this blog have furthered the conversation and have often made me think about the issues in different, deeper, and perhaps better ways.

So thanks to all of you for your participation and your continued support of this blog and our company.  The next year should be very interesting as we navigate a rough economy, product rollouts, more consulting work for clients eager to improve business results through social media, and the next year of developments in our industry.

Onward to year 2!