Archive for June, 2008

  • Jun 08
  • 20

How to Wiki: Wikis as Marketing Tool?

wikipedia-logo.jpgThe Wikipedia definition of Wikipedia reads: “Wikipedia’s articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and nearly all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet. Having steadily risen in popularity since its inception, it currently ranks among the top ten most-visited web sites worldwide.

In fact, Wikipedia is the 7th most visited website in the world, according to Alexa, with 52% of its page views coming from the English version of the encyclopedia. Wikipedia is the worlds biggest and most successful wiki, but there are thousands of niche wikis out there and due to their collaborative and social nature, they should be part of any social media marketing strategy.

Marketing on Wikis

  • Many wikis let you make updates anonymously. Ideally, you should log-in and create an identity. Be honest and be yourself.
  • Don’t use wikis for self-promotion. It is not intended for that and your entry will end up being deleted or at least edited.
  • While you want your business or brand to be added, it is better to build out complementary and appropriate information as part of adding your business. For example, if you are a professional social media marketing consultant, you’ll want to add content to the definition of social media or the definition of marketing.
  • It is OK to correct mistakes, it is not OK to remove competitors.
  • When you add a new page, make sure you start with the template that is appropriate. If you make mistakes, other people will fix them, and if you spam with inappropriate content, other people will remove you.

It is important to have a clear picture of what wants to be achieved with wikis. The main professional aim on Wikipedia or other important wikis should be tracking and managing what is said about you, your brand or your company. At least in the case of Wikipedia, their links are far too influential for anybody to ignore its content, especially given the public’s misunderstanding of its liberal editorial policies. It is also a very good way to contribute your knowledge of your market or the focus of your business to the community. Wikis should not be looked at as a tool to generate links or to increase a website’s page ranking. In fact, all links on Wikipedia are “nofollow”, meaning that they are not counted as a link by Google or the other search engines, which use links as part of their ranking algorithm.

Wiki Etiquette

There is a set of unwritten rules that will ensure a successful use of wikis as marketing tool.The bottom line is that any significant wiki community will be very vigilant and strictly opposed to biased information. Any effort to enhance a Wikipedia listing should make sure that it aware of and follows the established guidelines. That said, here’s a guide to creating a new page in Wikipedia.

Niche Wikis

This is a short list of niche wikis, which can be relevant to specific businesses or brands:

  • WikiTravel: the wikipedia of travel.
  • Dealipedia: a business wiki for mergers, acquisitions, venture investments, IPO and other deals.
  • LyricWiki: all the lyrics you can handle.
  • WikiMapia: collaborative mapping.
  • Wikia: community supporting the creation and development of wiki communities on any topic people are passionate about. Currently, they support over 6000 communities in more than 70 languages.

While wikis allow very little deviation from the established rules and customs, if you pay attention and follow the rules, wikis offer an extremely powerful forum for enriching the community and associating your online brand with intelligent and useful content.

4 Comments
  • Jun 08
  • 19

Product Placement is Not the Harbinger of the Apocolypse

apoc

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.” -Revelation 6:8, KJV

As many of you know, I am an avid reader of Kevin Nalts, who writes on his blog WillVideoForFood. I’ve been following him since before I started this company, and I have discussed some of his thoughts on viral videos before. It’s been some time since I last mentioned him because, unfortunately, I only bring him up when I disagree with him. Nalts: if you’re reading this, sorry for that. Everyone else: I highly suggest you check out his blog and follow it closely.

In all truth, it is not Nalts’ most recent post, entitled Video Sponsorship Trends: “Cashing In” or “Selling Out”, that I really take issue with. His post is really more like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Well, it didn’t really break my back, it just gave me the nudge I need to write this post which has been simmering inside me for a month now.

The Crux

The central theme here is the debate/argument over the relative virtues or evils of paid advertising (often in the form of product placement) that tries to seem like it is not advertising. If your favorite video blogger on YouTube talks about the new camera they are using, they might have been paid to do so by the maker of that camera.

(insert cheezy horror music here.)

How are you to know if it is a genuine product mention or a paid plug?

(insert confused face of an actress in an infomercial here.)

Many would have you believe that this situation represents a serious problem, tantamount to danger for the helpless, unsuspecting consumer.

The Views

Nalts’ article discusses another article written by Jennifer Hollett called Viral Video: Cashing In or Selling Out? I recommend reading it as well. The article brings forth different views on the matter. Nalts says, “It can help creators derive revenue, and therefore the quality of videos should improve. I think it’s great for brands because they can now access the audience in different ways than a pre-roll or a banner.” Then there is Kalle Lasn, editor in chief of Adbusters magazine and author of Culture Jam, who says we are already hit with 3,000-5,000 marketing messages every day. “I really don’t think we need 5,001,” he says.

This last view is tame compared to many that I have heard of late. As a digital marketing professional, I attend my fair share of web 2.0 conferences in the Boston area, and there are some times when I feel that I am almost not welcome. How dare I, a marketer, besmirch the purity of web 2.0! How dare I talk about how Twitter can be a powerful marketing tool for large companies! How dare I talk about the possibilities of hiring web video stars to create great content for your brand! I’ve heard people say that new media marketing is a black-hat endeavor. Frankly, I don’t agree.

The Spark

spark 2

At this point the savvy among you are saying, “So Matt seems to agree with Nalts’ point of view…why did Matt say he disagreed with Nalts at the beginning of the article.” Fear not, we have arrived at the much awaited point of contention. Now that we have set the stage, identified the issue, and seen some viewpoints, we are ready to go.

At the end of his post, Nalts gives some predictions for what will happen around this issue in 2008. In those prophecies he says:

I wish there was a law that required film makers to disclose any paid advertisers, even though I know much of the ‘product placement’ is offered free by directors. Federal Express, for instance, does not often pay to have its boxes appear in a film. The directors want the film to feel authentic, and seek permission not pay from FedEx to avoid needing to distract viewers with a Garbagepatch Kids-like bastardization of FedEx (FoodEx). In the end, however, I feel like the video creator owes me, as the viewer, disclosure. If you’re getting paid to hold a Mountain Dew, more power to you. Just let me know, so I don’t feel like you’re being sneaky every time your camera pans a mall and I see logos.”

It is on this point that I wholeheartedly disagree. My viewpoint follows…

My Stance

I think that any law (or even regulation) that required disclosure of advertising efforts is not only unnecessary, but also counter-productive. I do not feel that the content creator owes me anything of that sort, nor do I label you as nefarious if I notice you are drinking a Coke. I will try to delineate my arguments here:

  1. Squashing Creativity: I think that anything where content creators of any type are forced to disclose behind-the-scenes elements of their creation does nothing but stifle the free reign they might have to “go nuts” and create some really entertaining stuff.
  2. It Doesn’t Matter: There have been a bunch of viral videos that we have all watched and we likely weren’t aware that some of them were paid plugs. I just learned from Kalle’s article that the Guy’s Backflipping Into Jeans video was a Levi’s spot. Now that I know that…nothing has changed. I am not angry that I didn’t know that before. I do not feel violated because a corporation entertained me without my express permission. I do not see the damage caused by these marketing methods (i.e. product placement, branded entertainment, etc…), and therefore I do not understand why there is such a fuss about it.
  3. How Far?: How far would this regulation stretch? We all know that Tiger Woods is paid to wear Nike clothing on the course. But what about the random guy in the middle of the pack who is wearing an Adidas shirt? Maybe he isn’t good enough to warrant sponsorship. Maybe he is just wearing a shirt and the logo is there like it would be on any other average person. But, maybe Adidas is paying him. In this case we can’t know and we might be duped by marketers. So does this mean that under new regulations all sponsored shirts on the golfers would have to say “sponsored by: Nike” on them? If full disclosure were required in one form of advertising, wouldn’t it have to be required in all?
  4. Good Will Out: I believe in the power of a complex system to fix itself. In this case the “fixing” will be rather simple. The content creators out there who are just marketing whores and never provide value to their audience will quickly lose that audience. It’s like evolution. Audience (attention) is the scarce resource and the content creators will have to compete to get that resource. Done correctly, the help of money made from working with marketers could help a content creator thrive. But if that is abused, the audience will dry up real quick, leaving you alone to wither an die. It is survival of the fittest. We already see it taking place with blogs. When is the last time you saw a blog worth a damn that did frequent sponsored posts? One of the fundemental tenets of the evolution of the internet is that it allows for a bottom-up flow of information rather than a top down. So, it a bottom-up world there would be no need for top-down laws.
  5. Maybe It’s Better: I think there is tremendous potential in product placement and branded entertainment and other forms of so-called “sneaky” marketing. If Coke pays my favorite video maker so that he can put out a great webisode every week I am fine with it. Especially poigniant here is the possibilities for the extinction of the terrible and badly targeted TV commercials we current have to put up with. If Tampax pays to sponsor the “women’s interest” channels on various video sites, and therefore I never again have to see a tampon ad on TV, that would be worth it. If Viagra sponsors funny videos about aging and sex and therefore my girlfriend never again has to see an six ED ads during her favorite show, that would be worth it.

Conslusion

As always, I welcome and encourage discussion and – dare I say it – disagreement. As a new media marketer who believes wholeheartedly in Web 2.0 ideals, I am a little tired of being blamed for ruining all that is good about Web 2.0. I simply don’t see it that way and obviously there is a lot more talking to be done. No one really knows what works yet and what the future of marketing is going to look like. This is why we have blogs this…so we can learn together.

1 Comment
  • Jun 08
  • 17

‘Viral’ Marketing: a Strategy or Result?

What does the ‘viral’ in ‘viral marketing’ actually mean?

Confusing Clock

I’ve recently run into some confusion when talking to the viral and social media marketing crowd. While the issue wears many guises, it boils down to a disagreement regarding the definition of the word ‘viral’ in the term ‘viral marketing’.

Most recently in my own life, the confusion surfaced during both a client discussion and in the comments of my most recent viral marketing post. Both instances of miscommunication occurred for exactly the same reason: I had a different take on the word ‘viral’ than the others involved. This confusion raises a legitimate question: Does the ‘viral’ in ‘viral marketing’ refer to a result or a strategy?

Max Gladwell (@maxgladwell on Twitter), in the comments of a recent PandemicBlog post, pointed out that by referring to Pandemic Labs as a “viral marketing company” we were misleading people and that “Viral is an outcome, not a strategy.” I found this very intriguing for two reasons:

  1. I have previously heard the opinion that viral refers to an outcome yet I personally don’t see it that way and have never used it in this manner.
  2. He followed up his objections with thoughtful explanation which helped me understand the crux of the issue, understand his argument and question the validity of ‘viral’ being used at all.

As Max pointed out, the term “go viral” is often used to refer to a huge, blowout success; a pandemic. This phrase, more than anything I’ve come across thus far, seems responsible for some of the confusion. As this phrase is equating ‘viral’ with success, Max’s opinion is clearly a legitimate conclusion.

That said, my own understanding of ‘viral’ is distinctly different. To me, ‘viral’ denotes the specific distribution strategy of a piece of online media. Based on the precedent set by other types of marketing (online marketing, television marketing, email marketing, etc), I built my business around the idea that ‘viral’ described the means by which the marketing uses to spread the message.

Word of MouthBy my logic, when referring to a viral marketing effort, you know the piece of media will largely be spread around by online word-of-mouth, email and other person-to-person means. Understandably, the viral itself requires person-to-person spread like it’s namesake the biological virus. The individual-to-individual contact inherent to the spread of a virus is the important difference between viral marketing and other forms of “blast the consumer from one source” marketing (television, radio, print, etc).

Viral marketing does not guarantee success. Indeed, there are no forms of marketing or advertising that do. It is simply a newer strategy that has recently become available to marketers that has been named after a pre-existing biological process that it closely resembles. I do not think “viral marketing” should have unreasonable expectations laid on it just because the term “go viral” has gained a certain meaning in our modern lexicon.

My own opinions aside, Max’s point still stands and this leaves us, the marketing community, at a crossroads.

  1. Do we standardize on one of these definitions for clarity?
  2. Do we recognize going forward the validity of both and make sure to clarify when important?
  3. Do we seek another name for this person-to-person type of marketing to avoid the confusion altogether?

Personally, I feel ‘viral’ is an unfortunate but accurate moniker for what we do. The spread of a piece of viral media is very similar to the spread of a biological virus. The similarity lends itself to sharing a name. However, the shared name is what is limiting people’s thinking and causing confusion (this isn’t even taking into account the aversion people have to anything ‘viral, but that’s another post entirely).

When next the marketing community invents a type of marketing, might we give it a name entirely its own and skip the confusion?

Thanks to Max Gladwell for inspiring this post.

I’ll continue the discussion in the comments as usual. I await your thoughts.

4 Comments
  • Jun 08
  • 13

Social Media Marketing: Should ROI be the Success Metric?

Brands in one day

I am a career marketer whose work experience has always been linked to CPG companies and traditional marketing. I recently moved to the U.S. for an MBA and viral marketing crossed my way. I have to confess, I am a complete neophyte in the matter; and most of the jargon, web pages, and terms related to it are new to me.

To understand Social Media Marketing I got started with Dosh Dosh. This blog is really good, especially for people who lack the basic knowledge. It puts Social Media Marketing in easy, understandable words (a must for people interested in SMM). It has a series of articles called “Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing” that are a great starting point for newcomers. One thing got me thinking while reading this blog, and it was the article on “Social Media Networking and ROI (#7 of the series)”. For traditional marketers ROI is an obsession, so I was surprised to see a complete article dedicated to this for alternative marketers.

Why is ROI so important for marketers? Because they made it their ultimate goal. There is a joke that defines economists as people who spend half their life predicting what will happen, and the other half explaining why it didn’t happen. I think this also applies to brand managers. They spend half their time trying to convince their bosses to increase the promotional budget, showing how it will be a great boost for sales (great ROI), and then the other half explaining why the ROI was not as expected. They don’t seem to know that marketing itself does not sell. There are infinite variables that have great impact on sales other than advertising, packaging and promotions, so the success or failure of marketing should not be measured by the ROI.

Marketers need to understand the importance of managing and positioning brands, and investing resources to achieve this. Their goal should not only be increasing sales, but also increasing brand awareness, ranking better on top-of-mind, improving the consumer’s perception of the product, etc. Most of these goals are not tangible and don’t translate into sales in the short term. But they are the ones that make a brand successful in the long run.

Dosh Dosh’s article on ROI makes an important point in telling readers to have very clear objectives for Social Media Networking. This should also be true for any kind of marketing campaign. Achieving these objectives should be the only metric when determining whether or not a campaign was successful… regardless of the ROI. If the objectives are aligned with the brand’s strategy, then reaching them will guarantee a positive ROI.

Juan is Pandemic Blog’s newest contributor. If you’d like to read more from Juan, subscribe to our feed or leave a comment.

3 Comments
  • Jun 08
  • 12

Twitter Marketing

Steve JobsAs I’m writing my first post on PandemicBlog, Steve Jobs is speaking to the crowd at the Moscone Center in San Francisco and is announcing the next generation of Apple’s mobile operating system and its mobile phone device. The secrecy and buzz that is built around these keynote speeches have always given a boost in the traditional media to the announcements that Jobs makes that day and therefore boost sales the day that products finally reach the shelves. The online real-time following of the event takes place through blogs, Twitter and Twitter tools like Summize, generating an enormous amount of Apple-related content and opinions before, during and after the event. During a Steve Jobs’ keynote, Twitter traffic is 10 times greater than usual. Within an hour of the end of the keynote, the majority of the Twitter community is aware that on July 11th the new iPhone will be available at stores with a price of $199. This is how Apple will benefit from the Twitter/keynote combined madness and is also an example of the potential of Twitter for viral marketing efforts.

140 Characters to promote your brand

Several brands are using Twitter as part of their online marketing strategy. Moreover, they are engaging users by being in a position where they can penetrate their “circle of trust”, which in Twitter is the circle of the people they follow. Here is a list of companies (and their number of followers) that are using Twitter to inform “fans” of upcoming products, events, promotions, announcements, etc. In the case of Amazon, their Twitter profile works as a Book Finder; if you send them a message with a book title or ISBN, they answer back with the book’s price.

The mechanics of influence

The Twitter community is made up of highly engaged, pro-technology early adopters that look to enrich their Twitter activity by following important, interesting and influential members, as well as friends, relatives and colleagues. Being an “influencer” community, it is likely to shape the direction, preferences and opinions of others. The more followers a Twitter members has, the more influential he or she is and the more impact his thoughts, recommendations, complaints, reviews and comments will have. Like any other online tool that has reached a critical mass, there has to be an overall strategy in place in order to include it in a social media marketing campaign.

The Twitter pulse

Twtter LogoThe instant and constant nature of Twitter posts, and their ability to be generated from everywhere (thanks to Twitter integration with mobile phone devices via texting) opens the door for a parallel universe of user-generated content. Tools like Summize or Twist let the user search for a specific word in the “public timeline” and Twist also allows the search for trends of a specific search term against another. Twitter can be an excellent tool to see what is being said in real-time about your brand and manage your online reputation. Moreover, it let’s you socialize the way you manage your digital footprint. It is important to know that the Twitter pulse is representative of a certain segment of consumers and that this segment is highly influential and highly opinionated.

Bernardo Sosa is a new member of the Pandemic Labs team and he will be blogging here regularly.

14 Comments
  • Jun 08
  • 11

Viral Marketing to Generation ‘Why?’

Marketing to a generation that doesn’t follow orders, hates ads and throws a wrench in your strategy.

Read Write Web recently fielded a great article that caused interesting debate within our viral marketing company, and I thought it would be worth sharing. The article focused on how Generation Y (born between 1982-1997) is going to “change the web” and what makes a Gen Y-er different from the previous generations. Some of the notable (debatable?) facts about Gen Y when viewed from a social media marketing perspective:

  1. TV Isn’t King
  2. They Don’t Care About Your Ad, They Care What Their Friends Think
  3. Marketing Has to Change

I agree so strongly with these three notes in particular that I formed this business based on them! But the discussion that followed the article brought up some points that I thought worth getting blogosphere feedback on.

  1. If TV isn’t king what is? Stats show that TV quality content is still extremely popular (might we say king?) online. If this isn’t King, what does something need to do to be ‘King’? My main feeling is that TV as a medium is dying due to one main factor: Interruption marketing. What is the first thing a DVR/TiVo owner does? Skip all commercials. One of my colleagues asked “why?” when this point was brought up. I think the better question is “now that the possibility for freedom is there, why does anyone EVER WATCH TV commercials?”
  2. Gen-Y (and many older folks) are supposedly of the opinion that “your ad doesn’t matter”. I would have further refined this point to be “your poorly-targeted, uninteresting ad doesn’t matter”. Look at the viral success of some interesting, funny or amazing online ads. Are they THAT hard to understand? Are they random, unrepeatable anomalies? I say no. They all engage the consumer in a way that the consumer WANTS to be engaged. Putting a TV commercial online and then complaining that viral marketing is failing is like putting a Mustang in the ocean and telling Ford their cars don’t work! I think ReadWriteWeb had it slightly wrong. Gen Y-ers like relevant, engaging ads. They watch the Superbowl for the ads, they forward amazing online ads. Gen Y is responsible for the huge success of some viral campaigns. It’s the overwhelming failure on the part of the ads to understand the medium and earn attention that Gen-Y disagrees with, not advertising in general.
  3. “Marketing has to change” is about as timely and insightful an observation as someone showing up to the D-day beaches on June 10th, 1944 and proclaiming “something big just went down”. Maybe they were being “simple” for simplicity’s sake, but think comments like that reassure marketers in a terrible way. With that comment, we’re askin g people to ignore and delay the inevitable. “It’s OK, other people who ‘get it’ are just beginning to understand this new wave of marketing. I can spend five more years of marketing budget before I turn my brain on.” So much content is available online now (print, radio AND Television content) that advertisers who aren’t wising up don’t have much more time as the space is rapidly being conquered by the forward thinking outfits who are willing to “brave” the lands where consumers are in control of what they spend their time on.

I would say I think very much like a Gen Y-er. I can’t stand being interrupted online and I hate irrelevant ads, but I LOVE good viral videos and I love targeted ads. I realize that TV isn’t king anymore (or more specifically, for much longer). I realize that in an increasingly on-demand world, marketers can’t demand attention of Gen Y, they can only earn it.

If you’re a marketer seeking Generation Y’s dollars, ask yourself if you’ve honestly considered the changing landscape and changed your actions accordingly. It’s like they say, repeating the same action over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. How will you change your approach today to win Gen Y dollars tomorrow?

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